When Mr K told me Marcel Proust' The Swans is not available in his bookstore, in the high spirits to replace the invisible book and keeping up with the tax rebate requirement, after court yesterday I headed to the local bookstore.
What got my eye far before I reached the entrance of the bookstore is the The World According to Jeremy Clarkson., Vol 2 (RM 29.00)
Oh yes even after the volume 1, the world hasn't change a bit so he have to come with Vol. 2.
Yes, he's the TG hero I faitfhully follow on every Sunday evening.
To sum it all up, its a collection of his comments/criticisms to almost everything under the sun. As I sat, almost finishing the book, I was more than convinced that I'm the cause of nuisance for the other patrons as I could not stop laughing and chuckling silly. God, this guy is terribly satanic. He referred to almost everything and it made sense.
If I have to choose, his best article in the book would be 'My Son thinks I'm gay' which shows the after-effect of the younger generation to acquiesce something that was not acceptable before. A conservative, to him marriage between same sex is not a human right, as it does not serve for the main purpose of procreating children. But he put it a funny way.
In less than hour I had almost at the end of the book and I was frustrated because it is so light to be made as a purchase. Light reading is where you can always get from reading good blogs (or so I thought!!) and so I ventured down the literature section and I saw this:
Reading Lolita in Tehran.
Quite rightly so.
Everything that has to do with Tehran (except Faisal Tehrani) and Lolita (the book, not the idea) enticed me. Like a magnet factor. Despite what people say about The revolution 1979 as being the darkest regime, I found myself immersed into their modern history for the fact that no other nation would want to restore faith and replace modern living with the past.
So after making a quick purchase (RM59.99) I went back to work (to finish reading the novel) and quickly regretted buying it instead of Clarkson's. Azar nafisi's idea of making a bestseller is almost like Faisal Tehrani, being so academician like, they pour everything they know in a book. Ok Maybe Madam Nafisi's effort can still be forgiven as this is more of a personal jotting than a memoir, but this is what the usual critics love: love of literature would save the world (Bah!!).
The story is about 7 readers sharing a discussion of books banned in Iran.
Nafisi's freedom is jarred somehow to the inner-self conflict, the transformation of the veiled readers upon reaching the book discussion into unveiled being only revealed that they're only trapped more in their Christian Dior's heavy make ups and some banal dreams of doing something illegal in Tehran like owning a dog. From the frying pan into the………
Reading (and even obssesing) about Lolita or even the Great Gatsby do not make you a lesser muslim. In anyway the mullah or the moral police might have done wrong into limiting the people's choice of books. But for me nafisi's holds the bigger cake of blame. Certainly there are more freedom than what she she advocates. Hers in not heroic attempt and for the hype, I should have settled for Clarkson if it wasn't for the overrated glamour of Reading Tehran. Hell I've read battle of the gods long before it was unbanned. Apa kecoh.
Wonder if the Borders let me refund….
Now Mr K have a new list of books, hehe.. dear, get us Clarkson's book. You'll enjoy it too ;P
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