GET LOST (in a book)

Easterners can spin yarns too
By Nury Vittachi

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THIS WEBSITE STARTED life as a discussion about the globalization of books. Today, I am going to return to that topic.

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One summer a few years ago, I read six novels. The first was a "tense, chilling" geopolitical thriller about a man who uncovers a fiendish plot to destroy the American way of life. Toenail-biting stuff.

                The second? Well, it was also a tense, chilling geopolitical thriller about a man who uncovers a fiendish plot to destroy the American way of life. In fact, so was the third. And the fourth. Actually, all of them were tense, chilling, geopolitical thrillers about men who etc, etc.

                I felt totally inadequate! I often go for days without uncovering a single plot to destroy the American way of life. What's wrong with me? Can I get medical help?
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Seeking more relevant entertainment, I borrowed books from a female friend known for her literary taste.

 Hers were very different. The first was a "wickedly funny" comedy-drama about an independent American woman's disillusionment with life and her search for meaning which eventually leads her to finding fulfillment (ie, a tall man). The second was also a wickedly funny comedy-drama about an independent American woman's disillusionment and her discovery of a tall man.  In fact, all were wickedly funny comedy-dramas about independent American women locating tall men.

                Who believes this stuff? The women I know invest as much emotional energy in men as they do in their disposable razors (ie, half-hearted attention, two minutes a week).
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At about that time, I bumped into bestselling author Matthew Reilly, an Australian. I asked him: "Why did you write a tense, chilling thriller set in America?"

                "Practically every thriller is set in America," he replied.

                He was right. Most books in stores and airports are set in the West - - - yet the vast majority of human beings on this planet, four billion out of six and a half billion, live in the East.
                Our lives are WAY more interesting than those of Westerners.  We have coups, earthquakes, insurgencies, typhoons and despots coming out of our trousers. Sometimes LITERALLY. And in Asia, that's a slow news-day.
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This autumn, your humble narrator was involved in an effort to correct this anomaly. I was chief judge of a panel handing out A$110,000 to the best book set in Asia-Pacific. (This is more cash than America's Pulitzer Prize and about the same as the UK's Man Booker prize, depending on exchange rates.) Our prize was called the Australia-Asia Literary Award, because people in the Western Australian community organized and financed it.

 And you know what happened? We received fabulous books to read from all over Asia-Pacific, from Haruki Murakami, Thomas Keneally, Su Tong and others. The cash eventually went to a brilliant Melbourne man called David Malouf whose book was a collection of 31 stories - - and not one of them was a tense, chilling geopolitical thriller about a man who uncovers a fiendish plot to destroy the American way of life.

                Having said that, none of them were about a puny, bald Asian guy who fails to uncover fiendish plots to destroy anything, but hey, give him time. Maybe his next book will be.
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In the meantime, do yourself a favour. Throw out your Daniele Steele books. Support an Asian author. And I don't just mean buy our books. I mean allow us to move into your homes and eat everything in your fridge. You'll soon discover what "tense and chilling" really means.

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BOOKS TO READ

In addition to those authors mentioned above, here are some other gems to try.

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Jamaica by Malcolm Knox is a story about a group of adult males on holiday. He's a wonderful writer and captures the anguish of modern, stressful lives so well that the simple plot gradually becomes utterly gripping.
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Orpheus Lost by Janette Turner Hospital is an amazingly impressive work, about a culturally mixed man (an Australian with a Middle Eastern ancestry) who gets caught up with a girl in America. It is a love story, but it is also a thriller, and it is a 9/11 terrorism book, and it is a fable, and it contains shades of the genre of literature known as "magic realism". The remarkable thing is that it works on all those levels at once.
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The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid is a clever book. The whole book consists of one side of a conversation between two men at a food stall in Pakistan. Sounds like an odd format for a book? It is, but from this half-heard discussion tells the fascinating story of how east and west are in danger of drifting apart.
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Read any brilliant books you'd like to share?

 

 

               

               

 

Comments

[Lilian]

I love the books Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. It's simply enchanting and so different from expected. The Twilight series talks about the love between a vampire and Bella, a normal teenager, and the target audience is young girls, but my college graduate friends @ Brown gossip about it too. Check the books out and GET LOST in it!!

[I am lost]

I agree Twilight is great. I like Murakami as well although his latest After Dark is hard to get into. There's a collected short stories published by I think Vintage which is worth reading. short stories, nothing really happens but they are interesting anyway.
if you prefer real stories with lots of action, part one of Philip Pullman's dark materials trilogy is great, i liked the other two parts less.
Also worth reading is The Wind Singer by William Nicholson

[godiva]

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini... then his next novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

[David Ratnasabapathy]

"Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin. A stunning description of how our ancient ancestry as fish still shapes us today

[catterpillarboy]

The most recent book I have read cover-to-cover that is 'World War Z' by Max Brooks (Son of Mel) which is a "tense, chilling" geopolitical thriller about zombies with a fiendish plot to destroy the not just the American way of life but every one's way of life plus eating people's bbbrrraaaiiinnnsss...actually it is a book that really uses a global setting to great advantage and how different peoples confront a sudden world wide catastrophe...that said catastrophe involves the living dead just adds to an already entertaining read.

Another book I'd like to recommend is the graphic novel 'American Born Chinese' by Gene Yang (hey- and Asian author!) about the world's worst Asian stereotype, trying to find your identity and of course, the Monkey King...like the Narnia books, there is one or two Christian themes that can get too distracting if you pay too much attention to it...but otherwise, I found it fascinating for as a person who grew up 'yellow' in a caucasian setting...

I also have Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book on my 'to read pile' but everytime I try to start it, I find myself rereading Neverwhere for the umpteenth time for some reason...

[Mike Munson]

Four books I have enjoyed recently are

"The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread" by Don Robertson A story of a young boys journey to see his friend set in inner city in the 1940"s

"Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara A pulitzer prize winning historical narrative about the battle of Gettysburg

"Pest Control" by Bill Fitzhugh A funny mistaken identity tale of an exterminator

"Thank You For Smoking" By Christopher Buckley A political satire about a PR spokesman for tobacco lobby.

[haley]

It's so brilliant that people are reading books and recommending them. That fish one mentioned above sounds amazing. I also like the sound of the "greatest thing since sliced bread". I used to read loads but have fallen out of the habit. this makes me want to get back into the habit. I actually thibk this slowdown could be good for bookshops. books are cheap but contain a huge amount of pleasure.

[Mr Jam]

Thanks for the recommendations. i went straight to Amazon and read the blurb for the "your inner fish" book. i also like historical novels, and the Kite Runner, of course, is a modern classic.

For anyone who likes experimental fiction, try JM Coetzee's new book Diary of a Bad Year.
The book is in three sections, divided horizontally across the page.
The top section is a collection of essays on modern life.
The middle section is the diary of the writer of the collection of essays, and his relationship with a neighbour.
The bottom section is the diary of the neighbour.
Put the three together and you end up with this multi-dimensional view of a story.
Most curious of all, the reader is never told whether the essayist is Coetzee himself or a fictional creation, so we don't know whether this is fact or fiction...

[Jules]

Kaleidoscope by Barbara Erasmus.

A novel about two very different sisters: one who is cold and withdrawn and has Asperger's Syndrome (but doesn't know it), and the other warm and ebullient... until she discovers her daughter is autistic. Set against a beautiful South African backdrop, this book is what first got me interested in Autism.

[Nury]

Dear Jules, your book sounds fascinating--there's lots of asperger syndrome in my wife's family and they have only really come to realize it recently...

[Jan]

caterpillarboy, you must get past 'Neverwhere', amazing though it is, and carry on with Gaiman's 'Graveyard Book', it's terrific! He was reading it on the Internet a while back, and his rendition made it even better.... maybe if you Google it might still be available. Only one thing better than reading a terrific book is having one read to you and read really well!

[Quentin]

I have read all of Matthew Reilly's books and really enjoy them, however his last left readers halfway through the story ... mungrel. If you're after escapist stories try: Golden Serpent and Second Strike by Australian writer Mark Abernathy. I've also discovered some interesting novels by Tony Park. They're all set around South Africa but involve global action. Neither is likley to win literary acclaim but they're great reading.