Checking In

I know holiday season is right around the corner and everyone is busy with family. Maybe this is the reason why Musing Mondays has bowed out for two weeks on a roll. This is an update post to check in with my readers. I have been stressed out about family matter, which has slowed down my reading. The current read is yet another Christopher Bram book, Almost History, which to me is very authoritative because Bram, who has never been to Asia, has written a novel on historical moment from a gay perspective. It touches on the Vietnam War and draws a portrait of Imelda Marcos, the notorious wife of the former president of Philippines. With Colin Firth playing the main character in the film, A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood is lined up for re-read. Another movie tie-in novel that is worth reading is Up in the Air by Walter Kim. It’s about a guy named Ryan who flies around the country firing people. He is trying to get to one million frequent flyer miles before he is fired by the employer himself. Hope these books will keep me entertained until the end of the year.

[249] A Visitation of Spirits – Randall Kenan

It was then that he would realize that he was different and vulnerable and that the simple joy of being in love and expressing it with straightforward passion was denied him, and he would retreat into an indigo funk. [153]

Horace Cross is smart and nerdy; but the 16-year-old is tired of his suffocating life. He wants to spend the rest of his appointed time on earth not as a torture human being but as a bird. Through the practice of sorcery he summons a demon that will spirit him away from his family and achieve metamorphosis. In a night of horror and transformation, unexpected demons tear him away from his soul. Instead of turning him into a bird, the demons make him to be a ghost and situate him back to the stations of his life: the church dominated by his aunts and grandfather, and in which his elder cousin Thomas Malachi Greene has become a preacher, the school where he discovers knowledge and wisdom, the forbidden pleasures of sex, and all his past dreams that have hellishly turned into reality.

[Horace] had been created by this society. He was a son of the community, more than most. His season for existing, it would seem, was for the salvation of his people. But he was flawed as far as the community was concerned. First, he loved men; a simple, normal deviation, but a deviation this community would never accept. And second, he didn’t quite know who he was. [188]

The root of his suffering is sexuality: homosexuality and cultural homophobia. In school he befriends with a sissy boy whom he later jilts fir a group of well-to-do white jocks in an effort to dismantle his bookish image and assimilate. Against his conservative and religious background of his family, Horace’s existence is a continual battle between repression and desire. A professional male black actor is what convinces Horace that his mind has lied to his heart.

He suspected that his family might object to his action. But he had no idea they would pronounce treason and declare war. From top to bottom, uniformly, they condemned him. It was not the piercing of his ear, it was what it represented, they said . . . Then white boys done took a hold of your mind . . . Shames me to see you come to this. [238-9]

In a style that is literary and volatile, reminiscent of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, A Visitation of Spirits is interwoven with memory that fits past events into a matrix of the present. Whether or not Horace is truly possessed by demons that he invites, he is possessed by his own sexuality, and to control and suppress that desire he is rendered hallucinated (or schizophrenic). Shares the same struggle but from a different root is Reverend James Greene, who lives the tradition and expectation that Horace feels he has betrayed. James Greene is the norm by which Horace Cross is raised; but in fulfilling the hopes of family, choked and haunted by the ghost of his unfaithful wife, he is also denied of his promise. That the norms cannot provide an answer to Horace makes it all the more ironic for demons to deliver a way of life that is not condoned.

257 pp. [Read/Skim/Toss]

Speed Read

Today’s question: What do you think of speed-reading? Is it a good way to get through a lot of books, or does the speed-reader miss depth and nuance? Do you speed-read? Is some material better suited to speed-reading than others?

In ninth grade I took a study skills class in which I learned to speed read. The trick to speed read is to read the only the key words, skipping the prepositions and articles. Speed reading is good for skimming through a huge pile of books under time constraint. I speed read a few chapters of a book to get a feel for whether I should make a purchase. Otherwise I hardly speed read. In the event of a book that I don’t enjoy, I speed read to the end just to call it a day. Most the books I read cannot be rushed through or the depth and nuance would be missed. The ones I can speed read are airport novels.

Hyphen Magazine: Asian American Unabridged

I’m ashamed to have not heard of Hyphen Magazine sooner. Published out of the San Francisco bay area, which is gravitated with Asian Americans, Hyphen started from scratch with zero funding. Eighteen issues later, Hyphen has developed into a general publication that doesn’t flinch at covering serious issues, but also wouldn’t take itself too seriously. Unlike many special interest magazines, Hyphen transcends celebrity news and interviews. You may read Hyphen’s story by clicking the link. Here is an excerpt:

We began meeting around a kitchen table in San Francisco that spring, and over snacks and beer, a vision slowly emerged. The magazine wouldn’t flinch at covering serious issues, but also wouldn’t take itself too seriously. It would cover Asian Americans in Texas, Kansas and Minnesota, not just the critical mass living in California and New York. It would feature emerging artists, thinkers and doers, not only the few established Asian Americans who’d gotten mainstream approval. It would be a magazine that looked beyond identity — we’d explore cultural issues while tackling what is Asian American by accident, by tangent or by happenstance.

The book review section, Literary Aesthetics, intrigues me and that is what has captured my attention to peruse the entire magazine, which covers politics, art, and culture with style. The editorial team will review at least 8 books that are new and vintage. The issue that I stumbled upon at The Mission Statement, a co-op boutique run by my friend, features The Woman Warrior, Aloft, Marrying Anita, and more books that are up my alley. I always enjoy reading current reviews on classics.

The Letter to Editor section is smartly called Interroasian. Every issue also highlights a recipe on Asian dish like Cantonese sauteed shrimps. The scope of this sassy magazine is beyond Asian Americans who live in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. As I become more absorbed by Hyphen, I can’t help asking: Why is it called Hyphen? From the FAQ on their blog:

Hyphen refers to the debate surrounding so-called “hyphenated identity.” Some Asian Americans resist the idea that they are somehow not fully “American” when they are labeled “Asian American.” Others wear the identity proudly, while some shrug it off as irrelevant. We believe these differences of opinion reflect the dynamism and complexity that define today’s Asian America. Our magazine uncovers these tensions while exploring what it is that ties us together.

One last thing, but not the least, that makes this magazine so cool is that Hyphen is not-for-profit and run by volunteers. It’s a labor of love. Why shouldn’t I support these wonderful artists, writers, and designers? Hyphen is available at local independent bookstores near you.

[248] Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin

“I was in terrible confusion. Sometimes I thought, but this is your life. Stop fighting it. Stop fighting. Or I thought, but I am happy. And he loves me. Sometimes, when he was not near me, I thought, I will never let him touch me again. Then, when he touched me, I thought, it doesn’t matter, it is only the body, it will soon be over. “[88]

Set in the 1950s Paris, Giovanni’s Room is a compact novel that is so dense in emotional nuances of a young American who is involved with both a woman and a man. While his girlfriend Hella travels in Spain, David becomes friends with Giovanni: they connect the instant they meet at a bar. Although Giovanni is very fond of David, but this doesn’t make the American expatriate happy or proud. Instead the liaison makes him frightened and ashamed. Relationship with a man is sordid.

Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven matters? . . . But you can make your time together anything but dirty; you can give each other something which will make both of you better–forever–if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe. [57]

Albeit David admits his love for Giovanni, he is holding on to the deceptive consolation that Hella would fulfill his social approbation. With a fearful intimation there opens in him a hatred, which love ironically spawns, for Giovanni, which is as powerful as his love. Giovanni’s Room reveals the spoken complexities of the human heart, toiled between private desire and public expectation. Beleaguered by the pain of one who is caught between desire and conventional morality, David betrays his heart’s feelings.

You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love. You want to kill him in the name of all your lying little moralities. And you–you are immoral. [141]

David keeps fighting Giovanni’s love by sanitizing what has happened between them instead of accepting for what it is. Although David has never lied to him, he has never allowed Giovanni to reach him. Even when he makes love to Giovanni, he treats it as if there is nobody there–he is afraid to wear his heart on his sleeves. He has always been hiding behind the lies that he becomes to believe. Giovanni’s Room is a story of death and passion in its excruciating portrayal of how tragedy justifies true love.

169 pp. [Read/Skim/Toss]

Giovanni’s Room (2006 Review)

The Judgment

I unearthed a few forgotten books when I organized the bookcases. Surprises are always in store for weeding: new, unread, shrink-wrapped, and forgotten. One, in particular, is a book that I bought in Bangkok two years ago. Kinokuniya Bookstore features local authors whose works have been translated into English. I remember how much the prologue, which I quote below, strikes me:

This is the story of a young man who took as his wife a widow who was slightly deranged. (The story would probably have ended there had the widow not been his father’s wife.) And as the affair happened to take place in a small rural community, it grew into a major scandal which shook the morals of nearly everyone in the village and set one and all gossiping and passing judgment on the basis of whatever opinion each had formed about this abnormal relationship. [3]

An epoch-making novel, The Judgment is set in the rural central Thailand of the 1980s, is a scathing satire and chilling indictment of modern society, which condemns upright citizens out of sheer hypocrisy. It earned its author his first SEA Write Award in 1982. Twelve years later, his second award, for another novel Time, confirmed Chart Korbjitti as the most outstanding novelist of his generation.

This one is now at the top of my TBR pile. What have you found during your clean-up?

Mark the Spot

Today’s question: What items have you ever used as a bookmark? What is the most unusual item you’ve ever used or seen used?

Musing Mondays asked the same question back in February. I do not have a bookmark collection. I grab whatever is handy to use as bookmarks: receipts, scrap paper, movie ticket stub, bus transfer, post-it, boarding pass stubs, and expired library card. Usually I keep a couple pieces of scrap papers and post-its in the book for notes and they would fulfill the task of bookmarks. Recently I begin to collect bookmarks that announce store events from indies. The most unusual item I’ve ever used is money: a dollar bill or 5-dollar bill. Once I traveled in Japan during winter, between snowy weather and the shopping bags that I had to carry (Japan relies heavily on an excellent public transit and railway), I forgot that I left a few money notes in my book.

[247] The World of Normal Boys – K.M. Soehnlein

“But mostly he wants to get away from this room; more than that, he wants to slip into the swarming darkness at the back of his skull and merge as a different boy–unobtrusive, disinterested, normal. Someone not worth an argument.” [166]

The World of Normal Boys is a coming of age novel even though Robin MacKenzie just plunges in puberty, aging from 13 to 15. Set in suburban New Jersey in 1978, Robin is about to begin high school, which he has been waiting for not so much for privilege but for the liberty to explore his sexuality. At a time when teenage boys around him make the transition into young manhood, which is characterized by sports, fast cars, and girls, Robin enjoys day trips to New York City with his elegant mother, who is raising him to be like her: snobbish, literary, and cultured. Robin, however, can feel his father’s silent disappointment whenever he shifts his expectations to his bratty younger brother.

Humiliations great and small greet him every class period. [22]

All I know is nobody wants some kid their own age talking like their dumb mother. Why do you think Larry’s a;ways bothering you? You ask for it, Robin. [30]

As Robin secretly pursues the fulfillment of his sexual desires, a tragic accident befalls the family and plunges them into a spiral of slow destruction. Guilt overcomes his younger sister who turns into a religious fiend. His father’s once comfortable detachment has hardened into rage that targets at his being rebellious and inconsiderate; his mother’s irresistible style has been honed to a brittle edge frayed further by her drinking. They have become strangers who argue and stare at each other in anger and confusion.

I made a friend, you should be happy I have a friend. A guy friend. Isn’t that what everyone expects, for me to be more like a guy? Have guy friends? So you know what guys do? They ditch school and hitchhike and smoke and they don’t run home to their mother like crybaby… [103]

So Robin becomes a juvenile delinquent who gets deeply involved with two outcasts, Todd Spcier and Scott Schatz. He embarks on a perilous odyssey of sexual self-discovery, unbeknownst to his parents, who blame it on the aftermath of the accident, that leads to larger questions of what it means to stand on his own. Tension of the family trickles into the root of the MacKenzies’ unhappy marriage, revealing that his mother has been a stuck-up housewife who feels her life has been wasted.

I thought, ‘Robin is not like any of those other boys.’ I couldn’t even describe the difference. I mean, I could, but it would sound cliche. He was gentle. He was emotional. He was sensitive. [244]

The World of Normal Boys is so true to life in its delineation of the bittersweet conundrums of adolescent queer love. Packed with so many significant events and milestones, Soehnlein captures the shift of family dynamics in the face of a tragic loss. It’s an ode to a loving and intuitive mother who wants to protect her son from being a social outcast by paving the path for him to live a normal life, that is, assimilation. Although Robin is still uncertain about his future, his awakening homosexuality is preparing him for what the harsh real world might throw at him. At times queasy and unflinchingly explicit, this book explores growing pain to the fullest.

282 pp. [Read/Skim/Toss]

Ahem, Be Quiet: Proper Etiquette

This week’s question: For the regular library patrons among us: do you have your own idea of what constitutes proper library etiquette? Is there anything you always try to do? Anything you hate when others do?

I love this question. I can go on all day talking about people’s behaving inappropriately and indecently at the library. Have you seen these peel-and-stick cellphone citations and parking citations? I would like to have one made for library patrons.

Cell phones. People should never talk on the cellphones in libraries, museums, and bookstores. Keeping a low volume is not an alternative. I was taught to always be quiet and mindful of others in a library when I was a little boy. Library is a place for research and reading. I hate it when people treat libraries like shopping malls, walking through the aisles talking on the phone. I am not shy to tell people to take their conversation outside.

Soliciting. I understand the library is a public venue that makes information accessible to everyone. I don’t like people hogging the computer terminals all day. People who plug in and charge all their electronic gadgets at the study tables annoy me. People who groom and wash their hair in the bathroom creep me out.

Books on Shelves. For those who do not know the proper etiquette with books on the stacks, you are not supposed to reshelve them. Library clerks often have to conduct something called “shelf reading” to make books are shelved in correct order of the call number. A misshelved book is just as lost as a missing one. Leave the books on the trucks parked on the aisle.

Most of my gripes and pet peeves are about noise in library. Now you have to deal with those annoying texting singals and alert ringers. Libraries should make people check in their cell phones until they are through with the research. I know I sound very harsh and crazy but any activities other than reading, book-related research, and study hall should be curbed inside the library.

Update: Counting Down to End of 2009

Here is an update of my sort of reading-the-shelf challenge. I have been slammed at work as the semester is coming to an end, with stacks of papers and homework to grade. Reading has slowed down the past week, but I managed to finish The History of Love. My goal is to finish The World of Normal Boys tomorrow and write reviews of both novels.

Lives of the Circus Animals Christopher Bram
Howard’s End E.M. Forster
Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
Anne Of Green Gables L.M. Montgomery
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Louis de Bernieres
Persuasion Jane Austen
The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
The Calligrapher’s Daughter Eugenia Kim
The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame (I think someone will read this one to me.)
The Angel’s Game Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
The Bone People Keri Hulme
The Hour Between Sebastian Stuart
The Year of Ice Brian Malloy
The Enchanted April Elizabeth von Arnim
Theatre W. Somerset Maugham
The Women’s House Marilyn French
Molly Fox’s Birthday Deirdre Madden
Stone’s Fall Iain Pears
Death with Interruptions Jose Saramago
Indignation Philip Roth
The Book of Lost Things John Connolly
The History of Love Nicole Krauss

After reading some of the greatest classics since college, namely, Howards End and Brideshead Revisited, and watching the motion picture of Maurice, I have the craving for movies adopted from classic novels.The holidays would be high time for movie marathon. I am in particular insterested in the mini-series of Brideshead, and the movie adaptation of The Remains of the Day. In light of reading classics, recently on my shuttle flights between San Francisco and Los Angeles, I have experienced something that speaks against what the media say about decline in reading. On both legs to/from Los Angeles, everybody on my row was engrossed in reading during the entire duration of the flight. The lady at the aisle read from her Amazon Kindle, the business man in the middle made good progress on his 2666, and I was down the last pages of Howards End. On another flight, I zipped through the light and entertaining Up in the Air, which is made into a motion picture. Almost everyone around me in the business cabin was taken up with some reading materials.