lead.sails.paper.anchor

No no, this is not a proclaimation of any doubt or uncertainty. but let’s talk about a book which i am reading at the moment. IIU-pals, you have got to read the book ( My currently reading list), you’ll find some very familiar antics there.

am in no promoting this book, i started out being a sceptic towards the book. it clearly proclaimed I AM MUSLIM in a big red dot (somehow reminds me of communism) and the baby portrayed happened to look like a cute chinese baby. I opened to the back flap of the book, and bamm, there’s the author looking very pretty and all the intelligent aura, very MOD. i’m thinking, oh no, this lady is going to slammed the religion, disgraced adherents of the religion and say that look, i am so much better than you people out there. i read the first page, and found out the author grew up in a western country. oh no, this lady is going to say something bad about the malays, because clearly she seemed to be proud of her western upbringing. oh no, this lady is going to sham us muslims.

but not so fast. i almost put the book back on the shelf, but somehow, i didn’t. i thought, before i spewed all these accusations, it would be good if i read it first and understand what is it she wanted to say. she couldn’t be a personal enemy of mine if i happen to dislike the book. and days later i saw her face featured in straits times, about that very book i borrowed form the library. made me more raring to read it.

and so, even though it has not reached my favourite book level yet, i can’t help but agree with most of what she wrote in it. about being muslims but going to bomohs for remedies from spirits, about being a muslim and a nationalistic malay (in a certain country), about being muslim but fighting your inner sexuality, about being a muslim but non-philantropists. it’s how she expresses her dismay and sadness towards the community she’s living in, towards understanding who we really are, truly about finding oneself. i had to stop being a sceptic.

our values are often mixed up, when culture and religion collides, when personal conviction collides with societal blueprint, when inner desires contradicts with what you know. no wonder they say humans are complex. society, more complex than ever. who decides what is wrong or right? and when it is decided, revealed even, why can’t we just follow and have a utopian happy idealistc life?? why, if everything’s written down, why do sins happen?

humans…christians damned you with sins, hindus damned you with karma, jews damned you with lost land.

but we have always been pure. it’s a matter of maintaining that purity. Lord, this hurts.

John Steinbeck -The Winter of our Discontent

I never have thought that I would go through a Steinbeck’s novel and, read the whole thing and eventually falling in love with the characters…imagined myself in their world, that I’m watching them with my own eyes. This is one novel that left its mark in my short-termed brain bank.

The reason that I was amazed with myself was because, I have read a Steinbeck novel before, Grapes of our Wrath but I quit as I reached the thrid page of the novel, I was frustrated with the American country accent that was used in the novel, I can’t understand them…well maybe I didn’t try hard enough to read the whole thing, plain laziness actually. When I took The winter of our Discontent out of the shelf, I was thinking…I’ll quit even before I start reading it. But surprise surprise, I actually couldn’t stop reading it once I start!!

I won’t be a spoilsport and retell the story of our discontent here, rather I will say that this nice homely novel taught me of family relationships, about honesty and loyalty, about staying positive in facing life’s hardships and making the right decision. How a family having a moderate financial stability, the husband loving his wife with his whole heart even though he illlusioned that a woman was trying to seduce him, how a self proclaimed tarot card reader’s fortune telling would be, not a premonition of the future, but what she said became something like a motivator for the family to strive hard and brought themselves out of poverty. And it has a happy ending.

I won’t do any literature review or something the english lits would do or even a philosophical review that people do sometimes, but as a normal reader who enjoys reading good books, I never expect that I would actually like and understand a Steinbeck work! It’s the lessons learnt that I value so much!

Or maybe I found it heartwarming because it’s been awhile since I’ve read a novel at all, or something that is close to the heart like family stories. hmm…..

living seri

maybe memories

Muslim Am I

Winter of our Discontent