Just finished reading the Form 4 textbook novel for BM next year. A very dpressing and slow-paced story of war and the ugliness of human nature in desperate times. It's not sad (for me), it's just very heavy and disturbing to read. A. Samad Said (a Malaysian version of Dumbledore- no, I'm serious!) totally knows how to play with the emotions and drama. When I wrote the synopsis, it mostly consisted of describing lengths and lengths of conversation between the characters. It is definitely not a book of hope as it shows the characters being so helpless and just accept their fate. You can kind of imagine what it's like during wartime when watching Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, except without the human-vapourizing alien robot things. Just so you know, the movie nearly made its place in my heart, if not for its oh-so-unexplosive ending. Spoilt everything! Anyway, back to the textbook reviews. (I'm so damn bored that I wrote reviews on textbooks! bah!)The anthology was nice and typical. I really liked the play Serunai Malam, very cheeky. Khadijah Hashim's Budi Yang Tak Terbeli was also very nice, liked her works. The Pantuns and The Sajaks, on the other hand, seems very tough. Never really liked it as well as the traditional prose, don't really get it. For English, we get a collection of short stories and poems. The poems are a bit advanced in language and does require a lot more effort in internalizing it compared to the Form One poems. (yes, I was able to understand Macbeth because I think that he's a historical EMo figure. see, EMO was way cool back then even before there was an EMo music scene). The short stories are okay and different compared to the Form One short stories. some tend to convey a hidden message I have yet to unearth like the Drover's Wife and The Sound Machine. The wide range of genre differs from those childish short stories learnt in Form One. I liked the tale of The Necklace by Guy de Maupasant (I think I spelt it wrong..). It depicts a woman's studipidity in an obsession of materialistic things. (totally agree with that!). But I'd like it better if we had a dose of those 'em sci-fi stuff by writers like Isaac Newton and the lot..which actually brings us back to H.G. Wells who...
If you have not read this book, get you hands on it quick!
Yes, I'm serious, it is that good.
why?
simply because it is unforgivingly, brutally honest.
What I love of this book is basically the fact that not a single word has gone to waste. Every single description is relevant, and makes for a pinpoint analogy of each scenario in the book. When you traverse each sentence, you already have an idea what the author is trying to portray in the way he describes what the characters do, wear, walk, talk. the simple gestures represent the very soul of the culture so imminently depicted in this book.
And the main character, Balram, seems so real that you could almost believe that he actually runs around in the streets, er, slums of India. The complexity of emotions and the inner turmoil he felt as he expresses his views on the issues.
The author's ideas of a new-age caste of small-bellied and big-bellied people and the Rooster Coop has been compellingly displayed along the storyline, and y…
Yes, I'm serious, it is that good.
why?
simply because it is unforgivingly, brutally honest.
What I love of this book is basically the fact that not a single word has gone to waste. Every single description is relevant, and makes for a pinpoint analogy of each scenario in the book. When you traverse each sentence, you already have an idea what the author is trying to portray in the way he describes what the characters do, wear, walk, talk. the simple gestures represent the very soul of the culture so imminently depicted in this book.
And the main character, Balram, seems so real that you could almost believe that he actually runs around in the streets, er, slums of India. The complexity of emotions and the inner turmoil he felt as he expresses his views on the issues.
The author's ideas of a new-age caste of small-bellied and big-bellied people and the Rooster Coop has been compellingly displayed along the storyline, and y…
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