Writing
I am 50 pages in to Kappa Quartet, Daryl Qilin Yam’s debut novel, and enjoying the read immensely. The book was long listed for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015.
The prose is crisp and elegant with a sense of mystery and intrigue. The same may be said of Daryl himself.
In his spare time Daryl does all the work at Sing Lit Station where I managed to take a few images of him and he kindly signed his book for me.
Rail Corridor, Singapore 2016
“But the fact is that writing is the only way in which I am able to cope with the memories which overwhelm me so frequently and so unexpectedly. If they remained locked away, they would become heavier and heavier as time went on, so that in the end I would succumb under their mounting weight. Memories lie slumbering within us for months and years, quietly proliferating, until they are woken by some trifle and in some strange way blind us to life. How often this has caused me to feel that my memories, and the labours expended in writing them down are all part of the same humiliating and, at bottom, contemptible business! And yet, what would we be without memory? We would not be capable of ordering even the simplest thoughts, the most sensitive heart would lose the ability to show affection, our existence would be a mere neverending chain of meaningless moments, and there would not be the faintest trace of a past. How wretched this life of ours is!--so full of false conceits, so futile, that it is little more than the shadow of the chimeras loosed by memory. My sense of estrangement is becoming more and more dreadful.”
W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
Two recent #SGLit events at Books Actually:
I’m delighted to be amongst the writers featured in the SWF Pop Up Event Poets Among the Stars which will take place at 5pm on 4 June 2016 in the Omni Theatre at the Science Centre.
It’s free & you can get your tickets on Peatix here.
Eight Singapore poets will each read a poem against the backdrop of the Universe spread out across the huge, domed screen. The star studded* line up includes:
Award winning, Singapore Literature Poetry Prize nominated, multi-talented, ex -journalist and all round inspiration to both young and old.
Award winning, poet and teacher, writer of A Separation and The Law of Second Marriages, and co-editor of A Luxury We Cannot Afford.
Writer, performer, four-time TEDx speaker and force of nature. Deborah’s recently launched creative non fiction book, Rebel Rites, is an account of her year in the Singapore prison system.
Writer, educator and bird watcher, Ann Ang’s collection of short stories, Bang My Car, a Singaporean classic starring the Uncle has recently been reprinted in a beautiful second edition from Math Paper Press.
Award winning poet, translator and educator, Loh Guan Liang has recently launched his 'knock out', second book of poetry, Bitter Punch, published by Ethos Books.
Award winning writer and journalist, Deputy Editor of Berita Harian. A creative force in Singapore since the 90s.
Award winning poet, translator, publicist and educator, her poetry collection, They Hear Salt Crystallising (Firstfruits Publications, 2010) was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2012.
Come along it’s free!!
*Excluding your humble scribe.
On 12 May 2016 at The Arts House in Singapore, Nicholson Baker spoke about the 20 tons of bound newspaper volumes he bought from the British Library in 1999 using part of his retirement savings. He told us the story of Joseph Pulitzer’s ‘The New York World’ which was first published in colour over a hundred years ago.
The presentation showed:
I now regret tossing out my old copies of The Face and Beano.
I first read Nicholson Baker over 20 years ago so it’s been a privilege to meet him in person, and a treat to appear on a panel on Creative writing at NTU with him and Agnes Chew and Diana Rahim. He’s very tall, lacks pretension and self importance, and has shown a considerable warmth and generosity of spirit while attending literary events around Singapore this year. I don't think many in Singapore realise what a giant, and decent chap, of American letters Nicholson Baker is.
In the early 90s I first read his books Vox and The Fermata - these books were an integral part of my education. Initially I was disappointed when I read his subsequent books - spending ages looking for the naughty bits with very little success. Then I let the words and experience wash over me and I began to enjoy the meticulous, precise, flowing prose of Mezzanine, Room Temperature and A Box of Matches.
I really like his book, Human Smoke. Provocative and important, and very different in style to his other writing.
I’ve never read House of Holes, The Anthologist or Travelling Sprinkler. I must go to BooksActually and see if they have any of them.
On 30 April, SingPoWriMo 2016 held its Closing Party at BooksActually.
Apparently there were free ice cream sandwiches. I didn't manage to get any (maybe that was by design) but I did manage to find a kind person who gave me a cigarette (thanks Jocelyn).
Joshua Ip has a list of things to do next - including contributing to journals and supporting the 2016 Anthology with a donation.
The index of prolific, posting poets, partcipating is here. This year's 'surprise find' was Poetry on the MRT - coming to a carriage near you very soon.
There is even an ST podcast on SingPoWriMo and poetry with Joshua Ip, Alvin Pang & Deborah Emmanuel.
Images from prior years SingPoWriMos can be found here.
So what's next for SingPoWriMo?
Perhaps next year's SingPoWriMo could go regional and become AseanPoWriMo??
Written Country: The History of Singapore through Literature was launched at Kinokuniya last Saturday. The book is published by Landmark Books and edited by Gwee Li Sui.
This anthology tells Singapore’s history through excerpts of prose and poetry. A brief informative commentary on key events from the fall of Singapore to the death of Lee Kuan Yew accompanies the literary texts.
Gwee’s introduction sets out the editorial principles guiding his approach to the selection and arrangement of the texts. I like Gwee’s discussion of:
What is the quality that literature possesses that makes history come alive and something more than a list of observed facts and descriptions?
In the very first text, Lim Thean Soo demonstrates this quality when he writes about the schoolboy who runs to the concrete roof of his family home to watch the shelling and counter shelling, and the bombs falling across Singapore on the 15th February 1942.
Gwee notes, inter alia, writers form characters that possess ’some quality of having lived through time’ and possessing deeper forms of knowledge by ‘allowing information to be thought back to us - accordingly rethought, made meaningful.’
Gwee writes ‘[a]s ... texts enter specific moments, they effectively give back to events their emotions and, in this way, generate reflections and commentaries from within.’
At the Kino launch:
The book also contains prose excerpts and poems from Alfian Sa’at, Robert Yeo, Said Zahari, Goh Sin Tub, Dave Chua, Christine Chia, Gopal Baratham, Stella Kon, Boey Kim Cheng, Felix Cheong, Toh Hsien Minh, Tania De Rozario and others.
The book is a gateway drug encouraging the consumption of other works of leading Singapore writers.
Landmark’s founder, Goh Eck Kheng, did not expect Gwee to do so much work editing the book. Gwee probably did not expect to do so much work either. He ended up looking at a ‘couple of thousand Singaporean English titles’ and whittled that down to 54 pieces. Gwee’s expression after the suggestion of another volume of literature covering pre-war events can be seen above.
My only other question is where was the kachang puteh and potong ice cream?
Rizam Arsad, Energia Fitness, Riverside Point, Singapore 2009
"He remembered when he was a child, maybe about nine years old, massaging his mother’s feet. Pressing his little thumbs into her rough, calloused flesh as hard as he could. Feeling the warmth and softness beneath the dry, crackled skin and trying to smooth out all her tension and worry. When did the quiet comfort in each other’s company disappear? He loved his mother. Very much. It was just that she loved his brother more."
Excerpt from Rashid at The Sail, a story in my book, We Rose Up Slowly
In this story a young man, kicked out of home by his mother, retreats to his brother’s luxury condominium at The Sail to work out what to do with his life.
The story was written in 2014 and 2015 and was inspired by:
Rashid at the Sail:
In some ways this is an anti-Merlion story. The Merlion (that consumer staple of Sing Lit) means nothing to our protagonist whose inspiration is gained from another SingLit icon: a kite, representing the independence and agency of individuals rather than a contrived, 'marketing driven solution'. See Dave Chua's, The Beating & Other Stories, for a story with a Kite in it.
There are also references in this story to:
Buddhist Lodge, Kim Yam Rd, Singapore 2004
"He felt closer to dust, he said, than to light, air or water. There was nothing he found so unbearable as a well-dusted house, and he never felt more at home than in places where things remained undisturbed, muted under the grey, velvety sinter let when matter dissolved, little by little, into nothingness."
W G Sebald, The Emigrants
Here are some of W G Sebald's writing tips from a student at the University of East Anglia where he taught up until the time of his death in 2001. These provide a wonderful insight into his work.
Also here is the Michael Silverblatt KRCW Bookworm W G Sebald interview dated 6 Dec 2001. He died just over a week later on 14 December 2001of a heart aneurysm near Norwich.
NTU’s Creative Writing Faculty held a reading on 7 April at Artistry featuring several writers in residence: Tash Aw (Taiwan/Malaysia/UK), Divya Victor (Singapore/India/US) and Boey Kim Cheng (Australia/Singapore).
Tash read from his new nonfiction book, Strangers on a Pier, and entertained with tales of bourgeois gangsters and ‘bodice ripper’ reading teachers.
I like the emphasis in his essay on ‘routes’, rather than some fundamental ’root’ at the core of identity. See Stuart Hall.
I will write more about Strangers on a Pier and it’s themes of nostalgia, the frame of narrative and story technique in migrant tales, mixed identities and imposter syndrome in a later post. These thoughts will be written from the perspective of a reluctant ex Yuppie, Eurasian with an adopted and adopting, hybrid identity.
Divya read a selection of her poetry, prose poems and essays including pieces from her forthcoming book, KITH and a prose poem about the Tamil child suicide bomber who assassinated Rajiv Gandhi.
Boey Kim Cheng read The Golden Temple and a stamp poem (after forgetting where he’d put it).
The common theme reflected in the readings and their readers seemed to be the entanglement of national and cultural identities - or perhaps I was reading this into things.
Meanwhile, despite it being obvious to the point of banality that any one individual can have many identities, influences and stories, lately, political and privileged classes have ramped up discourses of bigotry and racism so anything reflecting the complexity of lived experience (we are many not one) should be celebrated.
Examples of discourses of ‘othering’ include:
Where is this racism, xenophobia and prejudice coming from? Punching down and a distraction from anxieties felt by the mainstream over the decline in opportunity and privilege? Another topic to be discussed in a later post.
Anyway back to the wonderful evening which may be summarised as follows:
the sandwiches were decent, and the satays and readings were better.
Really quite chuffed to have a short story published in Esquire Singapore.
Everyone please buy the April 2016 edition as I have purposefully rendered the text in the photo above illegible.
I note I am not inside the robot in the pic although it does bear a striking resemblance to my body shape.
Thanks Amanda, Wayne & Zul for this splendid opportunity.
And thanks again to Amanda for editing me - the second time she has done so after my story, A Girl and a Guy in a Kijang in Kemang in the Eastern Heathens anthology (2013, Ethos Books).
Montmartre, Paris, 2008
Full of gossip and acute observations, advice on the craft of writing and how to make your money go further, together with a great deal of bitchiness and not a little sadness, there is something compelling and immensely entertaining about Hemmingway’s memoir of Paris in the 20s, A Moveable Feast.
Hemingway’s personality shines through and his colourful sketches are often tinged with a comic, juvenile, macho competitiveness. Highlights include:
- Slagging off Ford Madox Ford (‘holding himself as upright as an ambulatory, well clothed, up ended hogshead.’)
- Revelations of intimacy involving Gertrude Stein & Alice B Toklas
- Poking fun at F Scott Fitzgerald’s anxiety about size induced by something Zelda said
- Reflections on Zelda’s impact on Scott’s writing, his hypochondria, and insecurities regarding The Great Gatsby (’To hear him talk of it you would never know how very good it was, except that he had the shyness about it that all non conceited writers have when they have done something very fine …’)
- An inability to distinguish between the wickedest man in the world, the devil worshipper, Aleister Crowley, and Hilaire Belloc
- Trying to get TS Eliot out of the bank
I read the earlier edition and I would like to read the 2009 Restored Edition put together by Sean Hemingway. The differences between editions provide an insight into authorial intent and authenticity.
I understand Mariel Hemingway has bought the film rights. A movie of the book would be something to see. Leo as Hem, Danny de Vito as Gertrude Stein, Tom Hiddlestone as F Scott Fitzgerald … ?
