floccinaucinihilipilification

An Act of Estimating Something as Worthless.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Dude.

Like, White Mughals could very well be the most important book I've read in a reallly loooooooong time! Spent HOURS today simply sitting at coffee shops at Orchard (yup, it was a Starbucks; I love the mocha and the ambience there, so sue me) There's a LOT of stuff to parse in the short segment that I read, so will post more on this soon.

On a whim, I've also picked up two other books, the original Harry-Potter-ian best-seller, Sophie's World and Love in the Time of Cholera. Both are books that have been on my To Read list for a long time indeed; remember reading about Sophie's World on a lazy afternoon in a Time issue at the old library in school. (Shanks, the Turner Library, not the Primary School one). I remember reading the review and an accompanying article on its popularity; I then noticed the price mentioned, quickly converted it from USD to INR, and came to the conclusion that it was still too expensive for either the Turner Library or us (as in, family) to buy the book. Not that we could even if we wanted to, anyway; socialist India was still cut-off from the international book market, and there was no amazon.com back then anyway.

Life is sweet justice at times; I also noticed a Lego showroom on my way out. Ventured in, but didn't buy any though; Legos, lately, seems more commercialised ("event-driven"?) than it used to be. I mean, what's with those Harry Potter and Star Wars sets anyway?

Love..., otoh, is less of a capitalist vindication, and more of a victory of time over, well, feelings. You see, I did get this book a mere four years back at a second-hand-books sale, but ended up not reading it completely 'coz I found it too depressing to read just after a mega-breakup. Things are much better now; literary merit trumps up any momentary feelings.

I will be picking up Blink! and Mr Know-It-All after I finish reading Umberto Eco's The Name of a Rose and Tipping Point. Yup, been spending heavily on books lately; better on books than on food, I reckoned.

Speaking of spending: I'm still drooling on an XPhoneII and am still waiting for those elusive Chinese New Year deals on mobiles.

[UPDATE]: Googled for William Dalrymple and felt compelled enough to send him an email thanking him for writing White Mughals. Shit, this guy writes some interesting books!

posted by The Cydonian @ 11:22 pm  

8 Comments:

  • At 8:12 am, Blogger Khanh said…

    Chinese New Year? Chinese New Year? Please note that it is actually Lunar New Year. The Chinese are not the only ones who celebrate the arrival of the new year as determined by the lunar calendar. The Vietnamese also celebrate the occasion. And not withstanding the historical fact that the Vietnamese kicked Chinese ass out of Vietnam some centuries ago and still mistrust the barbarians from the North, Lunar New Year has a nicer ring to it.

     

  • At 9:46 am, Blogger The Cydonian said…

    Ah, but if I say "Lunar New Year", the natural follow-up would be "Which Lunar New Year"? Is it the Hindu Amanta Lunisolar Year, the Hindu Purnimanta Lunisolar Year, the Islamic Lunar Year or the Hebrew Lunisolar Year? :-)

     

  • At 1:38 pm, Blogger Khanh said…

    Your examples of Hindu Amanta Lunisolar Year, the Hindu Purnimanta Lunisolar Year, the Islamic Lunar Year and the Hebrew Lunisolar Year all have particular words describing the year and are specific. So there isn't much risk of a mix-up if you say Lunar New Year. You can continue to use Chinese New Year. But don't expect any lucky red envelopes from this Vietnamese reader!

     

  • At 3:51 pm, Blogger The Cydonian said…

    Ah, what I meant to say was, if I say "Lunar New Year", it could mean any of the lunar years being used around the world and not necessarily the one in question.

    I suppose in the interest of hang-baos (what do you call them in Vietnamese?), I should start calling the calendar as the "Lunar Year of the Great Asian Rim" or something, although, given Chinese traditions here in sg, I technically shouldn't be expecting any hang-baos from unmarried folks, even if they're older than me.

    So is it the Year of the Rooster for you guys as well? And oh, how do you greet each other a prosperous new year in Vietnamese?

     

  • At 6:08 am, Blogger Khanh said…

    We Viet folks call those lucky red envelopes "ly xi." I guess you could refer to the lunar new year celebrated in Singapore as Chinese New Year, as the majority of the Asians there are of Chinese descent and susceptible to eugenics as mandated by the nation-state's rulers. I am going to refer to my lunar new year as Tet and herald the arrival of the new year with a loud "Chuc mung nam moi" (transl: Happy New Year) and a cockle-doodle-doo in honor of the Year of the Rooster.

     

  • At 9:38 am, Blogger The Cydonian said…

    Ah yes, but you're missing a critical point here: yours truly follows a different lunar year entirely. :-)

    Which is not to say I wouldn't celebrate the arrival of Tet, naturally, Ly Xi's are always welcome! :-D

     

  • At 12:26 pm, Blogger Khanh said…

    My calendar shows that the new lunar year starts on Feb. 9, 2005. That is the day that both Vietnamese and Chinese will light firecrackers and celebrate the advent of the Year of the Rooster. Which calendar are you talking about?

    I think you might be too old for "ly xi."

     

  • At 8:10 pm, Blogger The Cydonian said…

    We Indians use the luni-solar year too! :-) But with different eras/month/day calculations, naturally.

    Today, for instance, is the sixteenth day of the 10th month in the 2061st year in the Era of the Vikrama.

     

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