i'm coming apart at the seams. bzzz bzzz bzzz.

in a previous post, i made a brief reading list, which i had been eating through during my term studies. considering my 3-month break is coming to an end, and i think i've done at least some reading (not really, but this makes me feel better, so let's work with that), so it might be a good idea to post a follow up here.

i didn't actually finish dostoyevsky's 'the brothers karamazov'. my excuse is that i left it back in australia, and i'll read it during the term. but in all honesty, it's a bit dry and dreary. i actually like the dreary part, but i can only fathom reading this book and enjoying it if i had someone to discuss it with.

shakespeare's sonnets are awesome. 'nuf said.

love in the time of cholera, by gabriel marcia maquez is, in the immortal words of any high school girl, 'oh em gee it's like so awesome. like. wow.' but really, it's such a good book. as i might have said before, though, it may be because i relate with florentino pretty well. (oh, fermina...). ahem. the story is beautifully written, with a pace that befits the interjections of romance with personal drama, tragedy and the blissful escapism into (in)fidelity. my only regret is that i cannot read the novel in its original written hand.

which brings us to my recent reading list - starting off with re-reading austen's sense and sensibility, emma and (without surprise) pride and prejudice. during my younger days, we had to read pride and prejudice in malay, and having read it in english, i can only sigh in disappointment and disapproval at the loss in translation - the beautiful puns, witty sarcasm, sinister dialogue and extravagant descriptions. all lost. another death to the tongue of belittling men, another escape for the literary feeble. son, i am disappoint.

i have been reading, experimenting, and actually writing in plays and dialogue, recently. it is fascinating! i never really ventured out of descriptive writing and opinion pieces, but now i see what worlds of articulation i have been missing all these years. it has not passed me that, at a younger age, i would not have appreciated such style, but now i am happy to say, i will be delving into the dark arts of dialogue (and maybe plays) when i can perchance the time. oh yeah, as for the books that i read, they were by my all-time favourite author, oscar wilde. the importance of being earnest, lady windamere's fan, and a woman of no importance.

rest assured, i have not been wiling my time in such literary redundancies and escaping into, what german-bear refers to as, 'dead, white people's' words! borrowed from a friend, (i cannot think of an appropriate pseudonym right now :( ), 'what your teacher didn't tell you: the annexe lectures, by farish a. noor. this is well outside my norm of reading material. politico-historical and somewhat controversial, the least i can say is, it was an "interesting" read (note the inverted commas). in all honesty - no. just, effing, parameswara jesus, no. the contents of the book are not novel. there are no 'unexplained facts', conspiracy theories, elaborate schemes and overskipped details. there are no half-truths (well, as much as a historian may give leeway for), there are no hidden agendas. everything in the book, really was told in high school history, i kid you not. and for my (anonymous) friend who said they weren't, all i can say is, he probably wasn't paying that much attention in high school, because the examples he gave, all ring a bell. all of them. now, this is not a personal attack on my friend (although i could make it one, tee hee), but it is just to emphasise the gross false advertising the book's title has. nothing, i reiterate, in the book is entirely novel. sure, there is better referencing, there is slightly more elaboration, there are opinion pieces (and for this point, i give the author much credit, as history book at the high school level have none. just how much opinion should be in an ((unbiased)) history lesson, though, is another story). but, really, it's ho-hum, been there, read that. and for this, i would summarise, it is a good read. but nowhere as great as i thought it might have been, given the predispositive state my friend had put me in. ah well, can't win 'em all.

post is getting long, so i'll end this here and talk about more in another post.