Lost in The Focault's Pendulum

For several weeks now I have been reading The Focault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. It's a diabolical book. I would describe it as The Davinci Code written by/for nerds on crack.
The beginning shows promise, drawing you in, then the middle part just throws at you all sorts of stuff about the Templars, the occult, obscure references to secret societies. There is a murder, which led the protagonists (3 editors at a publishing firm that had been looking at works from scholars writing about the Templars, whom they call the Diabolicals. I agree.) to believe there is a secret plan involved and there are people who are making sure the plan remains a secret. So they embark on uncovering The Plan. They researched and consulted and hypothesised, and concluded that The Plan was to control the world (what else) by controlling telluric currents, which controls how the earth behaves. To control the current, the 'King of The World' needs to find out where the Umbilicus Telluris, the command centre of the earth. The Plan, is elaborate, it spans 600 hundred years involving 36 'invisible' agents every 120 years which they suspect is disguised as the Templars quest to find the Holy Grail, which is actually to finally locate the Umbilicus. But how do they locate it, and how do they keep it a secret from everyone else? They must use some kind of secret map and secret way to identify the location. That's where it get's interesting.

From Chapter 82:
"A map? But a map would be marked with an X at the point of the Umbilicus. Whoever held the peace with the X would know everything and not need the other pieces. No; it had to be more involved. We racked our brains for several days, until Blbo decided to resort to Abulafia [their computer]. And the reply was:

Guillaume Postel dies in 1581. Bacon is Viscount St. Albans. In the Conservatoire is Focault's Pendulum.

The time had come to find a function for the Pendulum.

[they read texts about Templars and the church and Galileo etc]

"All right, let's assume the Templars used the Pendulum to indicate the Umbilicus. Instead of the labyrinth, which is after all, an absttract scheme, on the floor you put the map of the world. The point marked by the tip of the pendulum at a given hour is the point that marks the Umbilicus. But which Pendulum?"
"The place is beyond discussion: Saint-Martin-des-Champs, the Refuge"
"Yes," Belbo replied, " but let's supposed that at the stroke of midnight the Pendulum swings from Copenhagen to Capetown. Where is the Umbilicus? In Denmark or in South Africa?"
"A good observation," I said. "But our Diabolical tells us also that in Chartres there is a fissure in a stained-glass window of the choir, and at a given hour of the day a sunbeam enters through the crack and always hits the same place, always the same stone on the floor. I don't remember the conclusion he draws fro this, but in any event it's a great secret. So here's the mechanism: in the choir of Saint-Martin there is a window that has an uncolored spot near the juncture of two lead cames. It was carefully calculated, and probably for 600 years someone has always taken care to keep it as is. At sunrise on a given day of the year ..."
"... which can only be the dawn of June 24, Saint John's day, feast of the summer solstice ..."
"... yes, on that day and at that hour, the first pure ray of sun that comes through the windows strikes the floor beneath the Pendulum, and the pendulum's intersection of the ray at that instant is the precise point on the map where the Umbilicus is to be found!"

When I read this part, the first image that came into my mind was this one:


The pendulum at The Dharma Lampost station in Lost.

I googled and discovered that apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought so too.
Who would wanna bet that the writers in Lost had read The Focault's Pendulum?
No wonder the show was so good. They are DIABOLICAL!!

So diabolical that I had to categorize this post under both Literary and Transmission Jam.

Meeting Eoin

Of all the times I have said 'tee hee', meeting Eoin Colfer (pronounced as 'Owen', by the way) would probably be the most 'tee hee'-ing time of all :)

Eoin was in Dubai for the Emirates Literary Festival and on March 11th, he gave a talk on Celebrating 10 years of Artemis Fowl. Describing the event as a 'talk' would be a gross understatement. It was more like a stand-up comedy set. Eoin is as witty and funny in person as he is in his books, or even more so. (Now I wonder if Terry Pratchett is the same way).

He started by explaining that he got the idea for Artemis Fowl from his 3 younger brothers, especially Donald (?) which is like a diminutive James Bond and could get his way out of anything. His other brothers were more like goblins, which he gladly killed off in awful ways in his book (like getting their heads blown off by an exploding fart in The Lost Colony). And one in particular (Neil?) was actually the inspiration for Mulch, due to his expertise in farting.

Someone asked him whether there's ever going to be an Artemis Fowl - The Movie, and he said that 'they' have been discussing it for years, so excuse him if he's a bit bitter about it. He said it'll probably come out in 3 weeks. After he's dead.

He really kept the audience in stitches. I had to fish out tissue paper from my purse because I was laughing so hard that all manner of bodily fluids were threatening to gush out.

After the talk, almost everyone lined up for a book signing. He smiled welcomingly at Anis and Anis gave him a blank look, so I had to own up that I was really the fan, not my daughter. He laughed at that. Anis took a picture of Eoin and I together, and if he's reading this, I would like to apologize for smelling like curry, coz we just came from lunch at an Indian restaurant. (It was really good lunch, if it makes a difference)



I think he looks a bit like Mike Myers, don't you?

Deceptively Delicious

Last Wednesday there was a scheduled power interruption in my compound, so I decided to make it a day out with the kids. We went to the bookstore at the mall and I found this widely-promoted cookbook on the shelves. My kids were ecstatic and insisted I buy it coz they saw it on Oprah and was drooling when Oprah raved about how delicious the brownie was.
I looked at the price and was suprised that after currency conversion, it was cheaper than I thought it would be. Needless to say, I was sold and bought the book.

Leafing through it while eating Fish and Chips for lunch with the kids, I wondered how I could use this newly discovered knowledge of hiding pureed vegetables into the dishes that I cook every day (read:Malay food), but this made me realize that hiding pureed vegetables is not rally a novel idea. We Malays have actually been doing it for ages!
Thin about all of the bingkas (malay cakes) you've ever had - bingka keledek, bingka ubi, bingka labu, bingka pisang.. arent they pureed vegetables made into a dense cake?
Cekodok is simply mashed banana fritters.
The Johoreans have been adding pureeed sweet potatoes in the gravy for their mee rebus (noodles with sweet+spicy gravy) for ages.
The book's recipe for donuts with pureed sweet potatoes reminded me of Cucur Keria (look for my recipe under Culinary Jam). And we take the mashed sweet potato donut a step further - by turning it into a spicy prawn filled ball (cucur badak).
And Vade and Masalodeh - are simply chickpeas and lentils mashed and made into savoury cakes - a very good way to subtitute meaty nuggets.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put down Mrs Se1nfeld, or her efforts. I'm sure I'll be trying our her recipes, and I'm sure I'll love it.
I'm just saying, maybe we should come up with a melayu version of this lah.
Like how to hide sayur in Ayam Masak Merah.
Mesti boleh buat punya lah...

Siapa nak join? Kita kasi tajuk .. "Sedap tapi Tipu", boleh?
ha ha.

Love in the Time of Cholera

As with other works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I found the book hard to read at first. It took me 3 tries over a period of a few months to read, re-read and finish just the first 10 pages. But after that, the book was a joy to read.
Marquez has this way of weaving his stories in such a way that it seems seamless, and that makes it really difficult to put down (coz I wouldnt know where to put my bookmark). Once I got past the first 10 pages though, I finished the book within 5 days, reading it before bedtime and in between housework.
I found this 'love story' to be romantic yet vulgar, corny yet real, funny yet sad, outrageous yet down to earth , extremely entertaining and slightly confusing.
There were times when I wanted to strangle the protagonist (Florentina) for his idiotic persistence in pursuing his love, but there are times when I understood his obsession. The love shared between married couples potrayed in the story really touched my heart, especially the emotions felt when you lose a loved one.
I was a little put off by an obvious pa3dophiliac incident towards the end of the book and I am thankful that Marquez did not linger longer on that subject.
In between depressing lamentations of pining for love, there were very comedic bits that got me guffawing out loud. Like, what's with the pacifier?
I didn't really fancy the ending though. Too .. fairytale like.
I could definitely see this book being made into a movie. I'm sure Hollywood would revell in showing off the nude scenes.

*goes off to search imdb*

oh, guess what?
The movie is actually in production!!
Javier Bardem is playing Florentino and Benjamin Bratt is playing Dr. Juvenal Urbino and John Leguizamo is Lorenzo Daza.
ooooh yumminess!
Though I would've imagined it the other way round since Benjamin Bratt is sorta thin, and wasnt Dr. Juvenal kinda stout?
aaanyways. This would be interesting indeed...

first lines

dedicated to nonah



See whether you can recognize these first lines from novels:



1. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.



2. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.



3. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.



4. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.



5. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.



6. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.



7. He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull.



8. I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.



9. It was a pleasure to burn.



10. You better not never tell nobody but God.



answers: 1. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813) 2. Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa) 3. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett) 4. George Orwell, 1984 (1949) 5. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859) 6. J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951) 7. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900) 8. Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome (1911) 9. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953) 10. Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)





I love number 9!!

Memoirs of a Geisha

Before I start, just wanted to announce that I have updated Izani's blog with the latest post: Sibling Smooches.

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I borrowed this book from Sharlee, and read it while breastfeeding Izani. It took me about a week to finish reading it.

I thought the book was beautifully written. The language used is simple and not too bombastic, and I like the way it sounded like a woman was telling the story.
I absolutely loved the descriptions of the sceneries, the smells and sounds of the okiya and the teahouses, and of course the kimonos.. oh the kimonos..! It made me want to own one!
The story was quite intriguing. I kept on reading, wanting to know what happens to Chiyo/Sayuri next. I thought the author fleshed out his characters well. Chiyo was not potrayed as a simple, good girl, victim character, but she also had a stubborn and mean streak in her. I did however, grew tired with her obsession with The Chairman, and thought the ending was too common, like the ones you would find in every Mills&Boons book. I felt sorta cheated, like the book was actually really a Mills&Boons disguising itself underneath all the silk and cherry blossoms and complicated Japanese traditions.
I also found some of the things that geisha's go through quite appaling, especially about mizuage, selling a little girl's virginity to the highest bidder (it's borderline paed0philia!) and then danna, selling a woman's physical loyalty, also to the highest bidder. Just because all these are glamorized by the donning of expensive kimonos, hairdos, make-ups and strict procedures, the world considers it 'cultured', but the covering of a woman's hair using a simple veil is considered 'oppresive'. What double standards!

After reading this book, I found myself trying to do things more elegantly , imagining myself wearing a kimono and serving my husband in a teahouse.
The other day I had to put on my batik sarong because Izani peed on my last pair of clean pants and I found myself admiring the bold colorful prints and felt kinda .. hm.. feminine in it, almost like a geisha. And I subconciously try to walk and talk more softly and gently..
damn.. this book is evil, i tell you.

I'm want to watch the movie, just to see the splendid images.
rotidua: cue for u and firhad to look for this DVD.

Squids will be Squids

Squids will be Squids by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.

Ilham borrowed this book from the school library and I had enjoyed it as much as he did (maybe even more than him, since I understood the sarcasm).

Its foreword went like this:

Fables have been around for thousands of years. And it's no wonder. Because thousands of years ago people were bright enough to figure out that you could gossip about anybody - as long as you changed their name to something like "Lion" or "Mouse" or "Donkey" first.
Aesop is the guy most famous for telling fables...
[and he goes on telling abt Aesop]
...
These [fables in the book] are beastly fables with fresh morals about all kinds of bossy, sneaky, funny, annoying, dim-bulb people. But nobody I know personally.
Really.

Moral: sometimes the names are changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
heh heh

And the afterward goes like this:

You have just finished reading fables about all kinds of bossy, sneaky, funny, annoying, dim-bulb people .. i mean animals.
"What fun," you are thinking.
"I should write some of those myself," you are thinking.
But before you get started, it just occured to me that you might want to know one more little bit about Aesop.
Aesop used to tell this one fable about a real bossy jerk "Lion" who ruled a city. When the real bossy jerk guy who ruled Aesop's city heard this fable, he didn't like it.
So he had Aesop thrown off a cliff.

Moral: If you are planning to write fables, don't forget to change the people into animals and avoid places with high cliffs.

One of my favourite stories in this book is the one titled "Straw and Matches":

It was the end of summer vacation. Straw had done everything he could think of. He was bored. So we went over to play with someone he had been warned to stay away from.
"Let's play checkers," said Straw.
"Okay I'm the red ones I get to move first I get two moves and you get one," sain Matches.
"Forget it," said Straw. "Let's play ping-pong instead."
"Okay I get the good paddle you stand on that side I get to serve first and you have to close one eye," said Matches.
"Never mind," said Straw. "Maybe we should just watch TV."
"Okay you sit over there on the floor I'll sit on the couch I get the remote and we have to watch my favourite video," said Matches.
"I think I hear my mom calling," said Straw. "I'd better go."

Moral: Don't play with matches.
hm... maybe I could give writing fables a shot ;)

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Mood: goofin' Playing: Fatal by Pearl Jam

The only other Joseph Conrad book I've read is Almayer's Folly. Which was a good story. It had adventure and romance and betrayal and violence and conspiracy and even a bit of women's rights thrown in..
anyways.

This one was a much much much more difficult read than Almayer's Folly.

Heart of Darkness was written almost fully in narrative form. That means having to read everything, even dialogues, in.. well.. narration.
I found it difficult to imagine tones and attitudes when it is told like this. Furthermore, the language was pretty flowery and 'advanced' for me. After reading a straightforward book like 'Lovely Bones', reading Joseph Conrad proved to be a chore. I had to use too much of my brains.. lol!
However, the story was intriguing enough to make me keep on reading.
A guy was telling a story about when he was manning a steamer up a river in Africa. He kept hearing about a Mr Kurtz, who everybody idolized and said he was great and stuff. So he goes on a journey to meet this MrKurtz and found him sick/dying and living with natives, sort-of. They bring Mr. Kurts out and he dies.
Well, there's actually alot more going on in the story.. basically he described the jungle and the natives a lot, and how the 'white people' were behaving over there and stuff. But half of the time it was people describing how great MrKurtz is, how inspiring, how brave etc etc.. that kept me reading the book coz as much as the protagonist, I wanted to meet and see what MrKurtz is really like.
Maybe I was too sleepy, maybe the bombastic words took a toll on my brains, but I thought meeting Mr.Kurtz was an anti-climax.

However, I think this book would make a good action-adventure movie. If they do make it, I'd definitely go watch.. just so that I could digest the book better. After watching the movie, I might even give it another read if it still intrigues me.

now on to Updike...

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Blog COmments

Posted by: zack_
Date: 9/28/04 at 10:51PM (1M3w ago)
if only i was interested on books as i am with paddle pop pelangi.

*sigh*

have a nice day elisa.


Posted by: elisataufik (Offline)
Date: 9/28/04 at 11:03PM (1M3w ago)

i was trying to search if there was a movie ever made out of this book and stumbled upon the reviews made in Amazon.com.

Though some views I tend to agree with, some made me think: Was I reading a different book or what?



"we were but stones, ... your light made us stars"


Posted by: Anuar Fariz
Date: 9/29/04 at 3:33AM (1M3w ago)
What CD was it? This reminds me of being in my brother's car and listening to Old Macdonald, as requested by the Princesses. After 20m, I was ready to bang my head on the dashboard and kill myself after 50m.


Posted by: didee
Date: 9/29/04 at 12:40PM (1M3w ago)
Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" is based on Heart of Darkness. It's a very difficult read, yeah? Tapi cool la in some parts.


Posted by: elisataufik (Offline)
Date: 9/29/04 at 8:16PM (1M3w ago)

really?? didnt know that. but Apocalypse now is SO different..

"we were but stones, ... your light made us stars"


Posted by: Yasmin
Date: 9/29/04 at 9:25PM (1M3w ago)
Hi elisa,

My first posting here, hope you don't mind me trespassing.

The book you want to read which has been compared to da vinci's code.. i think it's called 'the rule of four', written by a harvard grad & his friend.

Man and Boy

Mood: feeling better Playing: James, from James and the Giant Peach

I visited pezman32's blog and it reminded me of Tony Parson's "Man and Boy" which I have just finished reading while on holiday this past week.
The book is almost like 'Kramer vs Kramer' except the ending is a bit different. I wonder why its a best seller though. Granted that Tony Parson has a flair for writing and that his characters are very well fleshed out .. but I'm just wondering what is it that makes the story unique to people. Is it because it is about a MAN who's a single parent? And that he was the one who stayed behind and took care of the kid? I mean, is that unique? If you visit pezman's blog (http://pezman32.modblog.com), you'd see that it is not so unusual that the man is the single parent. It is not unusual for the man to be the tender, loving and caring half.
And why is it that I don't see books about female single parents on the best seller's list (or maybe there are, but I have not been reading them.. heh heh).

After finishing the book, I also wondered.. if the couple had 3 kids instead of just one, Would the wife had left as easily as she did? Would the husband still be willing to take care of the 3 kids with the wife gone? Would the husband still be fighting for the custody of the kids?

This book made me ask my husband whether he was happy with his life and whether he thinks he's having a mid-life crisis (coz I can't tell.. I mean, he's not like obsessed with his looks or fast cars or looking at other women yet .. he just kept renovating our house and complaining abt money).
This book also made me evaluate my husband's 'mothering' skills, i.e. If he were to be left alone with the kids for a few days, would he be able to survive or would I come back to find my kids wearing the same clothes that I left them with and food-deprived? I'm proud to say, he passed with flying colors ;) In fact, i think maybe he'd do a better job than me, coz I have a short temper..