Recent Reads

Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Letham

A man working for a shady detective agency in Brooklyn turns detective himself, seeking to untwine a ruthless crime and exact revenge for his murdered mentor/employer/____ (someone who gives verbal insults, whatever he's called. abuser?).

That's the simplest and an utterly unconvincing introduction that one can start off with to throw off the unsuspecting book browser. But that's not how this book won over numerous critics and awards.

The plot runs around characters with character; sprouting jokes with baffling punchlines that perhaps reeks of shady New York. Lionel Essrog has Tourette's Syndrome, sparking off in him uncontrollable shouting tics and a tendency to count things, any thing. That prolly upped the excitement a little. Brings to mind whiffs of the Belgian film, The Alzheimer Case; another imperfect detective.

In fact I feel like I can identify with the Tourette's sufferer on a personal level, our minds or body somehow flawed. That's why I like the book so. And of course, the author, Jonathan Letham, is tops. Humour within brilliance, I like.

The title reads: Recent Reads. Plural. Another book to go. But I suck at writing book reviews so much I'll just write this in brief for my own good memories' sake.

The Plot Against America - Philip Roth

Alternative history. Didn't realise that till I was 3/4 throught the book whereby I thought Charles A Lindberg was american resident for real. And part autobiographical, though how alternate it is from his real life, I have no idea.

Jewish kid growing up in american jewish family in a town largely made up of jews. Hitler and nazis started jewish holocaust in germany and eastern europe. WWII starts. american jews started fearing for their lives after F. D. Roosevelt got ousted by pro-nazi Lindbergh during the elections. book documents their lives for the many years to come till it was all over.

From here i learnt about the often misunderstood and sometimes mysterious Jews. In the past when I wonder if being Jewish is a race or religion, I now know that it is a bit of both, with no clear distinction, depending on tradition and personal beliefs. And the holocuast, aviation history, fascism, socialism, democracy and so on. I feel smarter after reading this book.

I thought I'm done, but from here, I suddenly remembered about another book that I've read before this.

War Thrash - Ha Jin

Compelling read. Communism vs Socialism. China vs China. Korea vs Korea. America vs Russia. something like that. Insight to some colorful and bloody part of china's history. Mao Zedong. Deng Xiaoping. Chiang Kai-shek. Taiwan. socialism. communism. democracy. egalitarism. nationalism. cultural revolution. red booklet. lotsa shit that I never really understand previously and even now.

It was this book that lead me to picking up The Plot Against American when i chanced upon it on the shelf. And which also revived my memories of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 1980 film, City of Sadness. Excellent film starring a very very young Tony Leung still with chubby face. Set during the period when China's nationalist troops under Chiang Kai-shek took over Taiwan, the Island of Freedom. hope i got that right. wrote a review for this before but never got around to finishing it. this will suffice.

And so you see, it's all linked. From Charles Lindbergh to Hitler to Mussolini to Mao Zedong to Che Guevera to Tony Leung.

What a small world.