Category: Books, essays and others

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Books, essays and others

[1666] Of movies ruin imagination

I think movies ruin imagination. That was how I felt when I finished The Golden Compass just days ago. Almost every word in the fiction refreshed my memory of the movie. Mrs. Coulter reminds me of Nicole Kidman, Lord Asriel unceremoniously brings James Bond into this world of daemons and I could hear Gandalf’s voice all the way from Middle Earth. I deplore such recollection.

In reading fiction, I appreciate having my own imagination. The author of course is the primary shaper of the world. The words in The Golden Compass after all are his words but then again, words are just words. Words do not describe everything and that gives readers some room to contribute to the world as each page is turned.

But a picture worth a thousand words. And a video may worth a gazillion of words. While reading Pullman’s work, I struggled to create my own world and instead, I found myself borrowing how Asriel, the Gyptians, the bears and many others looked like from the film. The film managed to describe everything, for better or for worse, that it imprinted perception in my mind. To erase that perception and create anew, or something in parallel is hard.

This is quite unlike how I felt when I read the Lord of the Rings many years ago. I am proud to say that I read the book well before it reached Hollywood. Now, Tolkien wrote an epic and the resulting imagination I derived from his work is something of biblical proportion. It resulted in a building of a world unlike no other. That is part of the satisfaction of reading a book.

That satisfaction has been robbed from me as far as The Golden Compass is concerned. I found myself stuck at how the film represents the world. So, as I turned the last page of the book, I found myself disgruntled.

I did enjoy the book nonetheless and putting it down was harder than I had suspected. I usually read before I go to bed and whenever I read, I hope to stop reading before midnight so that I would not wake up on the wrong side of the bed. The Golden Compass is one of those books that made three hours feel like three minutes and made me yawn endlessly at work.

The next book is The Subtle Knife and a movie is expected to be release in 2009. Since I already have the whole trilogy in my hand and that how I do not appreciate watching the movie first and reading the book second, looks like I have no choice but to read The Subtle Knife at once!

But I am divided. I was reading A Farewell to Alms before I picked out The Golden Compass and I would really want to finish Clark’s before finishing Pullman’s. But I want to know what happened to Lyra! And I really want to know how why the whole trilogy is hostile to religion.

Hmm”¦

Let me flip a coin.

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Books, essays and others

[1602] Of you and I…

You and I also began with the Big Bang, because all substance in the universe is an organic unity. Once in a primeval age all matter was gathered in a clump so enormously massive that a pinhead weighed many billions of tons. This “primeval atom” exploded because of the enormous gravitation. It was as if something disintegrated. When we look up at the sky, we are trying to find the way back to ourselves. [Sophie’s World. Jostein Gaarder. Page 425]

Next book!

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Books, essays and others Sci-fi

[1593] Of space elevator and Arthur C. Clarke

The one book that brought me to the path of environmentalism was Red Mars. The science fiction, along with Green Mars and Blue Mars as its sequels affected my worldview so profoundly. The Martian Trilogy as the three books are collectively known is more than an entertaining science fiction. It touches on various issues, ranging from the environment to technology, liberty to ethics, economics to politics, war to love. But I do not plan to write about the Martian Trilogy. Instead, I write to remember the great Arthur C. Clarke.

Is it not odd to remember Clarke through somebody else’s — Kim Stanley Robinson — work?

Not so.

I cannot recall where exactly it occurs in the trilogy but the space elevator played a central role in developing the plot of the Martian Trilogy. The facility was a symbol of colonization of Mars by humanity but it was hugely despised by some fraction of naturalized humans. These humans whom played pivotal role in making the colonization possible were the new environmentalists called the Reds. They would like to preserve Mars as it is while the Greens sought to terraform Mars into another Earth. Notice the word play. Great struggle immediately ensued with friends became foes and down came the space elevator.

There are many ideas that piqued my interest in the book and one of them is the space elevator. The idea of a vehicle transporting people and goods alike to and fro a planet and outer space sounds astoundingly amazing to me; it connects a geosynchronous spaceport to another surface-based port on a planet that acts as an anchor. In the Martian Trilogy, the spaceport was the Martian moon Phobos and the planet was Mars. Later, Earth itself had an elevator and that initiated greater space exploration and Solar System-wide colonization.

A space elevator is present in Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri but the superstructure does not have any real role in the turn-based game.

One book which the space elevator took the center stage was Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise. While the idea of a space elevator first appeared in late 19th century, it was Clarke through this novel whom popularized the concept of space elevator.

The atmosphere of the novel is set in Sri Lanka though in the book, Clarke called it Taprobane. In any case, Taprobane is the ancient Greek name for Sri Lanka.

The storyline switches back and forth between Vannevar Morgan and Kalidasa; the former is the mastermind of the space elevator in the 22nd century while the latter is a prince of Taprobane seeking to construct a tower in ancient times. What ties the two characters together is ambition; building a monument in the face of opposition.

I will not speak so much of the elevator since I have done so just over 6 years ago. And I think, the best way to give respect to a great author is to encourage others to read his works rather than unfairly paraphrasing it. So, I recommend The Fountains of Paradise for your leisurely reading.

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Books, essays and others

[1512] Of a time for a tiger

I thought the Malayan Trilogy by Anthony Burgess was still banned in Malaysia and so I stopped looking for it. Very unlike the effort, my interest in the novel did not die out and when I found out that Sharon, along with Malay College Old Boys’ Association, said it was time for a Tiger, I wasted no time to shoot her an email for a spot in that function. Two weeks later, when the time finally came, I found myself staring at a pile of The Malayan Trilogy!

A pile, I tell you!

“But aren’t those banned?” I asked myself in shocked. Ignoring my promise to have North’s as the first book to join my collection in 2008, I hastily grabbed my wallet and enthusiastically paid the scruffy looking old boy behind the counter.

Inside the hall, I spotted several familiar characters. It was a MCOBA event after all. A. Samad Said was there too though I am unsure how does he relate to the Malay College.

But I did not know anybody personally. Or least, I doubt they would remember me. They were old, old boys anyway. Conversation with them would not have gone far and it would have been awkward. So, I sat alone patiently while chewing some kuih and drinking watermelon juice (Was it watermelon?).

I must have looked sad because Sharon came over to me and invited me to her table which was full of people. In my mind, did I look that sad?

I almost protested, asserting that I was enjoying a company of cheerful imaginary friends. But she insisted and confidently picked my drink in effort to make me accept her offer. I was hard to refuse and I moved over to her table.

At that table, a face looked way too familiar. It was not until he introduced himself as Amir did I realized that he was Amir Muhammad. Rob Spence, the speaker of the evening, was at the same table too. Truly, conversation of the table had one theme: books. When I cracked an economics joke, trying the steer the conversational wheel away from what seemed to me obscure books, it backfired. Everybody only gave me pitiful smiles.

And so, I kept quiet, keeping to typical conversation like what do you do, where are you from and other lame things. After what seemed like eternity, the event began.

While Sharon was introducing the guest of the evening, she told the audience that the ban on the book was removed after it was stealthily banned by Malaysian authority in 2007 due to noises made over the local blogosphere and she was part of the campaign. She received a applause for that. As a libertarian, I have no choice but to join the clapping.

It was a good evening. Dr. Rob Spence gave an entertaining primer on Burgess and laughter filled the hall countless of times. I do not remember a lot of what Dr. Spence said but I remember how loud I laughed when he told the audience that Burgess had the cheek to write a book and then assumed another pseudonym to review his own book and gave it high marks. That would have looked bad on a lot of people but with Burgess, it was just hilarious. Burgess’ encounter with the Duke of Edinburgh was another funny story.

What was equally entertaining were anecdotes told by various students of Burgess themselves! It was incredible to listen to individuals that knew Burgess, or Mr. Wilson as they referred to him, personally. As these old boys recalled their days in Kuala Kangsar, laughter filled the hall once again, again and again. At times, I could not breathe because of too much laughing. I was grasping for air, really!

After all was done, I thought I saw Michelle Gunaselan, a co-contributor at Bolehland. I wanted to sat hi but it was already late and I had to go to work the next day. So, I shook some hands and bid farewell.

Before I went to bed, I took a peek at A Time For A Tiger and now, I have another reason to finish up Sophie’s World fast!

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Books, essays and others Personal Society

[1497] Of faith, superstition and addiction

‘Superstition.’ What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called ‘faith.’ But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was called superstition! Who had the right to call other people’s belief superstition? [Sophie’s World. Jostein Gaarder. Page 42]

Wow. Gaarder’s Sophie’s World and two previous books that I read, Beinhocker’s Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity and the Radical Remaking of Economics and Dawkins’ The God Delusion, have common themes to relate to each other. Beinhocker’s and Dawkins’ share the idea of evolution while Dawkins’ and Gaarder’s touch on religion. Granted, the shared themes are not the main themes of each book but there are no doubt overlaps.

I tried to connect Beinhocker’s the previous book in my list, Rehman Rashid’s A Malaysian Journey but I would have to resort to a very broad topic to find a common theme — for instance, the language is English — which would not be too astounding to deserve a mention.

I wonder how I could relate Gaarder’s with the next book I plan to read. Maybe, I am getting ahead of myself. Still, though I have just started with Sophie’s World, I have a feeling that it will not take me long to reach the ending, especially when I have finally settled with favorite time of the day to read book while cutting down on the time I spend on the internet.

This is quite embarrassing but I think I am addicted to the internet again. It is not as severe as it once had been during the glorious day of Utopia and World of Warcraft but it is slowly getting there. To my defense however, I spend most of the time on Wikipedia reading up on history, philosophy and other curiosities that pop up out of nowhere. And of course, blogging.

This is unhealthy. Thank heavens for the Nature Society. Now, I can go do healthy stuff while surfing the internet on my Blackberry in the wild!

Err… right.

Argh. Blackberry is a bane.