Two good things

It is beginning to get a little down beat living in this city these days, what with exploding maidens, disappearing doctors and PIs, astonishing incompetence, and unbelievable hubris. It is almost as if the Chinese curse 'may you live in interesting times' is haunting us. It did arouse my baser instincts in the beginning but I don't feel that way anymore. To paraphrase one expat who came into the shop recently: "What's going on here? There are so many major issues all over the world and people here are only interested on who did what to whom." I had to concede that this is a bizarre country.

However, I am elated by two bits of pretty exciting news (for me at any rate) that came my way in the last week. The first is the publication of the book Tales from the Court by Matthew Thomas. (I'll come to the next one later.) So, what's so exciting about it, you may ask? Another writer, another book. Only that Matthew Thomas is sixty-two years old and has never written creatively before (except for legal briefs). His short story appeared in Silverfish New Writing 5. As far as I know, he is the only Silverfish New Writer from Malaysia, out of more than 150, to have come up with his own volume of short stories in English (I am not counting those who have recycled their previously published stories), and ironically it has to happen after we decided to end the series.

I didn't know that he had never written before when he asked me if I liked his story in SNW5. He asked if he could send me some more. I said, sure. I had almost given him up as 'another one of those' when he sent me his manuscript some two years later. I was delighted. Later when I found out that he had just finished writing them whilst engaged in his full-time legal practice, and that these were not stories he had written years ago, I was gobsmacked. He was certainly not going to spend the next ten years congratulating himself and milking the glory from the one short story in SNW5. And Matthew is no one-hit-wonder. He is already working on his next book.

As Mohamed M Keshavjee, his very good friend, says in the afterword to the book, 'In this book, all ... characters talk to us. The author captures the very essence of their being ... and their little games in life ...' In Tales from the Court are little anecdotes of little people, much like in the works of RK Narayan or Jorge Amado, and not grand narratives. This is a book by Malaysians for Malaysians. Matthew refuses to pander.

Tales from the Court is the second book in Silverfish Books' Malaysian Literature in English series. And Malaysian literature, it is. This is what we hope to be doing from now on: complete books by Malaysian authors. Currently we have six more in our line-up. Yes, we are not prolific. We prefer to take our time, work with authors and produce books they can live with, and we can live with. How many more Matthew Thomases are there out there? Please raise your right hand and step forward. We need more of you.

Our aims are modest -- about a dozen or more Malaysian authors producing good books consistently should boost the industry. Win prizes? Why not? A Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the South East Asia and South Pacific region is certainly not inconceivable. The Booker? Okay, I am going to let fly on something that I have kept bottled up for a while now:

Page 90, Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005.

'Bomnabhai's wife's earlobes, lengthened with the weight of South African diamonds, so great, so heavy, that one day, from one ear, an earring ripped through, a meteor disappearing with a bloody clonk into her bowl of srikhand.'

Earring? Meteor? If ever there was a schoolgirl simile ... Okay, give her an 'A' for her composition ... clever Form Five schoolgirl ... but a Man Booker? What were they thinking? Is this the epitome of English prose today? (I can imagine the cattiness in the room after the results were announced and she went up to receive her prize ...)

There is more. The book is full of it -- silly similes and stereotypes. (Is there some kind of competition going on, about who can come up with the silliest?)

Anyone surprised why I cannot read books like this anymore? VS Naipaul got it right: '... Indian Writers in English (IWE's) are responsible for creating a body of literature in exile mainly written by writers and read by readers living abroad ...' Yes I know, European and American readers like this shit, it confirms their stereotype and ignorance, and writers make a lot of money. But, again ... a Man Booker? If anyone wrote that at a Silverfish Writing Programme, I will tell them to 'go and take a shower'. (BTW, a customer told us that this book is in the chick-lit section in one major bookshop. Padan muka.)

Gosh, I am making myself all depressed again.

So, while we look forward to rubbishing this year's winner let's go on to the next good thing that happened to me recently. I got my Malaysian International Passport renewed in one hour and fifty-five minutes. Yes, you read that right. They promise a two-hour service with the new kiosks at Pusat Bandar Damansara. I had to test it. It works. Oh boy, does it work. Finally, something in this country works as promised. No form filling, nothing. One passport photo, photocopy of IC, original IC, old passport, two minutes in front of the touch-screen kiosk, and collect your new passport two hours later. Guess what? No queues.

Cool.

The Kindle conundrum

"It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore ... Forty percent of the people in the US read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore."

This is Steve Jobs' comment when asked about the e-reader in general, and the Amazon Kindle in particular. But then Steve Jobs is noted for making comments like that and then coming up with a device that blows the competition out of the water. Think iPhone, talking about which the latest 3G model had just sold one million in the first three days. In contrast according to a Bloomberg report, James Mitchell, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York, estimates that the Kindle sold between 25,000 to 50,000 units in the first three months of it launch. (Jeff Bezos himself refused to divulge any numbers, Steve Jobs was happy to.)

For many, the Kindle is dead -- say the last rites and get it over with. For others, the jury is still out yet, though they are beginning to sound more and more like cheerleaders still moping about on the bleaches about the referee's controversial penalty decision, refusing to leave the stadium, long after the game is over and all the spectators have gone home. Or hedge fund managers trying to talk-up the price of Amazon stock so they can cash out quickly.

In a story posted on Seekingalpha.com titled Amazon's Kindle Numbers: All Fluff, Zero Substance, Preshant Cherukuri writes: "It is very obvious that Amazon's Kindle is a huge flop. In six months of travelling, I am yet to see a single person on any bus, train or plane with a Kindle in their hands. Contrast that with the iPod or iPhone or even the Sansa, where people can actually be seen using them everywhere."

He adds: "... I still have not understood why anyone would pay US$350 for a device that needs to be powered up all the time to be in use, just to read a book which otherwise costs US$15 on an average. And its not like the e-book is free on Kindle: you have to shell out an
average of US$10 per book."

This is a view not uncommonly expressed. I can't understand it either. I have no intention of buying an iPhone (I do not use mobiles) but I can see how it could be useful. For one thing, the iPhone is merely a fully-fledged computer masquerading as a mobile phone. (Has AT&T not caught on yet?) You can watch DVD quality movies, television shows, listen to music, play games (Wired Magazine says the other gaming platforms better watch out), surf the net, do word processing, spreadsheets, and emails in a device that fits into your shirt pocket. And ... read books, newspapers and magazines? (Apple also reported that it recorded 10 million software downloads for the iPhone, also in the first three days of the launch.) Doesn't give Kindle much of a chance, does it? I have not seen one, but from photographs it does not look like it will fit into a pocket easily.

Then, PC Pro says that author Nick Hornby writes on his blog: "Attempting to sell people something for GBP400 that merely enables them to read something that they won't buy at one hundredth of the price seems to me a thankless task ..." He says a member of staff at Borders
told him that. He asserts they are so expensive that even multi-millionaire stars don't want them, and says that his local bookstore is "piled high" with Iliad eBook readers.

Then there are the cheerleaders. The Bloomberg report mentioned above says: "Donald Graham, chief executive officer of Washington Post Co., travels almost every week and says he hardly ever leaves home without his Kindle digital book reader from Amazon.com Inc."

And that: "By 2010, Amazon may get 3 percent, or US$741 million, of revenue from sales of the paperback-sized reader and digital books, according to Citigroup Inc. analyst Mark Mahaney, a Kindle user. That's up from this year's 0.3 percent, or US$60 million ..." Someone even says, "It's reasonable to assume books will go the way of music or the DVD at some point, with the majority being sold digitally ..."

Ahem.

A more recent report in The Independent says that Waterstone's is to launch its own e-Reader. Borders UK launched one in May. Waterstone's, which is part of HMV Group, is thought to have signed a deal with Sony.

For more related stories in cyberspace read Kindle seen as transitional technologi in Business Week and Is a Kindle to books as an iPod is to tunes? in the San Fransico Chronicle. Talk about wishful thinking.

Meanwhile, Gregory Lamb of the Christian Science Monitor reports that "As Microsoft backs away from digitizing old texts, some worry that a single company could privatize world knowledge.” That is, Google. "Should a single company be left in charge of putting all of the world’s books online?" he asks. The story is about concerns of Google becoming the new evil empire. But what is interesting is that Google CEO, Dr Eric Schmidt, sits on the Board of Apple.

Hmmm. It is getting interestinger and interestinger.