Love Marriage by V. V. Ganeshananthan

Reviewed by Gail Tsukiyama

Ms. Magazine

In spare, lyrical prose, V. V. Ganeshananthan's debut novel tells the story of two Sri Lankan Tamil families over four generations who, despite civil war and displacement, are irrevocably joined by marriage and tradition. At the heart of the story is American-born Yalini, 22, the only child of Tamil immigrants. Her father eventually becomes a doctor, her mother a teacher; they make their new life in the United States. Even so, Yalini feels bound to "the laws of ancestry and society."

Born during "Black July" of 1983, the beginning of the civil war between the Tamil and Sinhalese, Yalini is haunted by Sri Lanka's political turmoil, caught between the political and social traditions of her ancestors and the modern world in which she lives. She can't forget that in a Sri Lankan family there are only two ways to wed, in an Arranged Marriage or a Love Marriage, even though she knows that "in reality, there is a whole spectrum in between, but most of us spend years running away from the first toward the second."

Uncertain what to do with her life, Yalini takes time off from school and travels to Toronto to help her parents care for her dying Uncle Kumaran, her mother's older brother, who immigrated to Canada. He was once a militant Tamil Tiger rebel who killed many people, including other Tamils, and seeing him brings Yalini face to face with the political strife in Sri Lanka. With him is his 18-year-old daughter, Jenani, who has chosen to marry a Tamil operative in Toronto and continue the struggle for a Sri Lankan separatist state. While Jenani is determined in her beliefs and goals, Yalini still struggles to find her way.

Through conversations with her uncle and parents, Yalini transcribes the many stories of her family and their political allegiances through each generation of marriage. Doing so, she begins to understand the spectrum that fills the void between Arranged Marriage and Love Marriage. She learns of her Uncle Neelan, who espoused the "enemy," a Sinhalese girl who protected him when the Sinhalese-Tamil riots began; of her Great-Aunt Harini, who was abused in a marriage to a "wrong" man; of her Aunt Uma, who was too "special" to get married. Above all, it's her Uncle Kumaran, who found love "under the strain of politics," who helps her see that she can only "cure the future by knowing the past."

Love Marriage covers the decades of these family stories in brief vignettes, a style that can feel fragmented and cause some character confusion. Still, this is a minor complaint about an otherwise powerful story. Ganeshananthan shows us that most of us live in the "whole spectrum in between." While Yalini may or may not find a love marriage, it's in understanding her family history that she's finally free to choose.

Source: Powell’s Books

Big book fest

ON May 24, the country's biggest book fair will begin at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. For nine days, until June 1, there will be author appearances – including Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad! – and a gamut of book-related events, as well as a whole lot of books on sale at great prices, of course.

To get into Popular bookstore's BookFest@Malaysia 2008, you need to buy a BookFest catalogue (RM2 each) from any Popular or Harris bookstore outlet around the country.

Here's a brief list of what's happening when in the areas featuring English language books and events. For information on Chinese language-related events and for a complete listing, go to bookfestmalaysia. com. The Star is a media partner in BookFest@Malaysia 2008.

May 24: Appearances by best-selling authors like James “Mr Midnight” Lee; The Star's Food Safety columnist and author of You Are What You Eat, Chia Joo Suan; True S’pore Ghost Stories author Russell Lee; The Unmaking of Malaysia author Ahmad Mustapha Hassan; and a sharing session with popular feng shui master Joey Yap.

May 25: Mr Midnight and Russell Lee appear; hair salon maven Winnie Loo shares her success story; the popular Senze shares secrets of How to Use the Internet to Make Money; and Zainal Abidin Rahman shows how to Catch the Coaching Moment.

May 26: Teen author Lim May-Zhee makes an appearance; indie filmmaker and author of the highly entertaining Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things Amir Muhammad appears; a session for all graduates would be Pass Your Job Interview Within 30 Minutes, surely; and celebrity interior designer Eric Leong makes his debut as an author with his book, Design Fast Forward.

May 27: Authors of What Would You Do, Sia Leng Suan and Ng Khoon Lay, will make an appearance; Kevin Zahri shares his Fitness 24/7; The Star's Mind Our English editor, Kee Thuan Chye, will talk about Common English Errors; and there’s the intriguingly entitled Blind Fold Reading.

May 28: Story-telling sessions and colouring contests for the kids; Sony puts up its Show Time; Dr Kong Voon Sin shares his Zest for Life; and author Zhang Su Li shares from her travel book, A Backpack & A Bit of Luck.

May 29: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad makes an appearance to sign his books; Jeff Keow, author of Think Out of the Block with SUDOKU, makes an appearance and there's a Sudoku fun time session; also, a session on how to make your children high achievers as well as story-telling sessions.

May 30: This is Healthy Living Day with exercise demonstrations as well as cooking demonstrations by celebrity authors/chefs like The Star's Cook's Nook columnist Amy Beh as well as Florence Tan and Su Chan (of Su Chan restaurant fame); Pauline Yong makes sure your money remains healthy too by sharing from her I Love Stocks; and for the children, there'll be a fun session with the mascot from Kuntum, The Star's children's magazine.

May 31: Manoj Kaimal shares from her yoga book, Celebration of Asanas; Dr Yeoh Phee Liang shares important info about Cataract & Refractive Surgery – all you want to and should know.

June 1: Detoxification the Way to Go says author Patricia Loh; popular authors Norzalina Nordin and Damya Hanna make appearances to sign books; Carol Yip shares from Charting Your Retirement Plan; and Jacinta Chan shows you How to Benefit From the Current Market Scenario Using Technical Analysis.

Source: The Star Online

World Book Day @ POPULAR Malaysia

23 April was designated as World Book Day in 1995 by UNESCO General Conference and is celebrated in over 30 countries around the globe each year. On this Day, special events and activities are held in various countries, to encourage everyone, particularly young people, to discover the joy of reading.

In choosing April 23 as World Book Day, UNESCO drew inspiration from a Catalan tradition. On this day in Catalonia, numerous book fairs and street festivals are held and customers are offered a rose with every book they buy. By celebrating this Day throughout the world, UNESCO seeks to actively promote books and good reading habits.

April 23 is also a symbolic date in world literature, marking the birth or death of such renowned writers as Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare and the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.

In conjunction with World Book Day, POPULAR (www.popular.com.my) is organizing a nationwide promotion with the following offers from 18 April till 4 May 2008:-

1) Free exclusive POPULAR pen with blinking neon light, with every purchase of RM50 and above for POPULAR card members and, RM 90 and above for non-card members.

2) Free exclusive POPULAR collectible postcards, with every purchase of RM 40 and above for POPULAR card members and, RM 60 and above for non-card members.

3) Special book deals for English books (3 for RM88) and Chinese books (3 for RM68).

Special events such as story-telling fun time for children, book-sharing sessions, and educational talks are also organized for all POPULAR customers in line with this promotion, which has started on 18 April and will end on 4 May 2008.

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers: A novel

I like this novel, even though I still not reading it, yet. It’s about cross-cultural understanding. Here is one review worth to read. The price of this novel at MPH bookstore is RM 75.90 (maybe be hardcover).

Reviewed by Gail Tsukiyama (Ms. Magazine)

In the last 20 years, the proliferation of Asian writers in Europe and the Americas has grown into a lovely chorus of voices, opening our eyes to the lives of people and cultures we've only known from a distance. Xiaolu Guo's debut English-language novel takes us a step further into the complicated landscape of the immigrant experience.

We immediately recognize the alienation of 23-year-old Zhuang Xiao Qiao, known as Z to Westerners who can't pronounce her name, as she arrives in London for a year to study English. Frightened and alone, her broken English no help when seeking housing from Arab landlords with equally limited language skills, Z finds London a "refuge" camp. Her parents, who own a shoe factory in rural China, believe their daughter will "make better life through Western education." What she will also receive is an education in love.

Z soon sees that "the loneliness in this country is something very solid, very heavy." In a city where everything is new and foreign, where the most precious reminders of her old life are gone, she gradually makes a place for herself, a process Guo cleverly describes through Z's steadily improving English. Word by word, month by month, her insight into this new culture grows until, at the cinema, she meets an older Englishman, a part-time sculptor, and embarks on a relationship that will change the way she sees the world.

What begins as a blossoming of love, sex and freedom gradually finds Z questioning the different ways in which each views their life together. Their relationship unravels when his growing need for solitude and his lack of commitment conflict with the closeness and community for which Z yearns.

The collective society she left back in China values family and tradition; this Western concept of individuality and living only in the moment is hard for Z to understand. She is left to reconcile their essential difference: "'Love,' this English word: like other English words it has tense. 'Loved' or 'will love' or 'have loved.'...Love is time-limited thing. Not infinite....In Chinese, Love...has no tense. No past and future. Love in Chinese means a being, a situation, a circumstance. Love is existence, holding past and future."

In her quest to find herself in the West, Z realizes just how Chinese she is -- and that learning to speak a language doesn't necessarily mean being able to communicate. Guo, also a filmmaker, has written an inventive, often humorous and poignant story of a woman's journey over cultural and emotional borders. While books with similarly suggestive titles may fall into the chick-lit genre, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is so much more.

Source: Powell’s Books (www.powells.com)

Book from bloggers on how to blog

Did you know this peoples; Paul Bausch, Matthew Haughey, and Meg Hourihan? I bet not many recognized who they are. So do I, never come across the names as listed. But after I got and browsed through “We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs” book, then I know them, not personally, but by their experiences and expertise.

Paul Bausch is the co-creator of Blogger.com, the popular weblog software. A veteran Web developer, Paul is skilled in a variety of programming languages and is the creator of several useful blogging tools.

Matthew Haughey started the community weblog MetaFilter.com, which now has over 13,000 members, and helped develop the Blogger.com site and service.

Meg Hourihan is the cofounder of Pyra, the company behind Blogger. A frequent speaker on the subject of weblogs, she runs her own award-winning blog (megnut.com) and was profiled by the New Yorker in an article on weblogs.

If you’re wondering what a weblog is, how to start one, and what the benefits are to blogging, this book is for you. This book steps you through building and maintaining a weblog of your own. It also provides insight into the culture of blogging.

You also can find topic on how to building blog for business and expanding your audience through syndication.

Title: We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs
Authors: Paul Bausch, Matthew Haughey, and Meg Hourihan
Publisher: Wiley Publishing
ISBN: 0-7645-4962-6
Paperback, August 2002, 313 pages
Category: Computer/Internet