Chatter Of The Squirrel

Book: Island Of The Sequined Love Nun – Christopher Moore

It’s such a weird title, I couldn’t resist looking into it.

Happened to have 400+ km of driving to do, and this nearly kept me awake.

Satirical tale of a jet pilot who crashed a plane and emasculated himself on the instrument panel. In desperation, he takes up a cushy job flying a Lear jet for a missionary doctor on the island of Alualu. The islanders are a cargo cult worshiping a dead World War 2 bomber pilot. Somewhere in this, there are Japanese ninjas with Uzis, a talking fruit-bat, an old cannibal, a transvestite navigator, and a ghost.

Just a really odd tale. Not Dirk Gently odd. More like MTV logic odd.

Kind of a cotton candy story. No substance. Not very bad. But I got nothing out of it. Except assuaging my curiosity re: the odd title of the book. The genre is classified as satirical fantasy. Didn’t get the satire.

If I had paid for the book, I would’ve been screaming murder.

Book: Glorious – Eddie Izzard

Technically not a book. Just an audio collection of a transvestite’s stand-up comedy.

A very rants-y British ‘guy’. Random topics. Only thing even half memorable was a random rant about Darth Vader.

Kinda dated. Not all that funny. Even Chris Rock had some moments. Glorious, is somewhere at the level of Everybody Hates Chris on my funny scale.

Maybe if this had come on my radar a decade ago?

Book: On The Road – Jack Kerouac

A most appropriate title to read on a long distance bus ride.

It’s supposed to be some great American novel, written in one continuous ramble with no chapters.

The ramble doesn’t really work in an audiobook cos I can never tell where I’ve gotten in the story when I wake from a doze.

The book is somewhat autobiographical of the author’s hitchhiking stories. One moment he’s shacking up with a Mexican gal, and the next moment he’s missing a friend, and the book is finished.

It’s probably so arty that it went right over my head. I might attempt it again in another circumstance where I might be able to keep awake.

Book: Slam – Nick Hornby

A 15yr old skater-boy gets his girlfriend pregnant. Family drama ensues.

Skater boy also projects Tony Hawk, who gives him life advice.

The book reads like Catcher In The Rye. But without the spoiled brat in the narrative.

It’s a young boy with a real problem. Very real and insightful narrative. Lots of social commentary.

Not really exciting. But very enjoyable.

Book: Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

A colleague needed a favor to help pick up a book from Ikano. I used that as an excuse to pop by Borders for an evening of indulgence.

I finally found where they’re keeping Nick Hornby’s new book. Near the floor. On a turn-stiley-shelf. And the face with the book covered by a piece of furniture.

Don’t care enough to grief them about their poor placement for such a good book. I’ll just be grateful that the book’s unwrapped, and take it to my favourite chair behind the audio-CDs section.

I have a soft spot for Nick Hornby. Quite inexplicable. Several years ago, I had to take a bus down to the city, cos the Popular Bookstore near Klang Bus Stand was the only bookshop around that had a copy of How To Be Good. I spent several hours there, taking in turns standing till my legs grew tired, then squatting till my legs grew numb. Till I finished the entire book. Then Kinokuniya KLCC for High Fidelity. MPH MidValley for 31 Songs.

There’s no gripping plot. No larger than life characters. No clever gimmicky trope. No multi-page sex scenes. Nobody dying of a terminal disease. And no vampires.

But I adored the books.

Juliet, Naked begins with an English couple, making a pilgrimage to America to visit the places that shaped and defined the career of Tucker Crowe, an obscure 80’s musician that has not done anything in 20yrs. Duncan is a Trekkie, if Star Trek had a fanbase in the double digits. He has all of Crowe’s albums, and bootlegs of his performances. He dissects minutiae of Crowe’s life and music on the internet. An obsession that is going to be a source of conflict with his live-in girlfriend of many years.

This sounds far from interesting.

But it’s the way Hornby focuses on a character’s obsessions and emotions, in a way that MAGNIFIES the character and making him real to me.

I simply love it when a character can have such passion for music, that a song can move him emotionally, to the point of being socially dysfunctional.

Perhaps that’s how I see myself as well. I’m aemotional to the brink of dysfunction, probably. Well, at least where people are concerned. You know how Canton dramas are populated with flat, cookie-cut, 2-dimensional characters? That’s pretty much how I perceive everyone around me. I have zero depth perception. Each social contact is pigeon-holed into a ‘role’, a proximity bubble radius is assigned, a number of social interactivity parameters are toggled and fine tuned, and a dossier of pertinent facts filed away and updated. There are very few people who have been able to provoke emotions from my cold, hard shell. At the rate I’m going, on the day I die, I’ll still have more teeth in my mandible than there are people who lived that had been able to make me feel. I’m barely staving off disaster by using an evolving algorithm of social strategies.

And maybe that’s why I draw so much joy in reading these books. Where fictional characters seem more real to me than the last person I spoke to.

And why each author’s death is a soul withering experience.

Hmm… this isn’t so much a review of the book than it is a distracted fan-rant.

I’m only a few chapters into the book. Will attempt to finish it over the next few weeks. I doubt that stocks will deplete before I complete. I’m snobbish when it comes to books. But the tripe that populates MPH’s best-seller lists has yet to make me to rethink my stance.