In which I return to Chiang Mai to discover that something has changed for the worse…
Namely the choking grey miasma that now hangs over the city. The burning season has begun, late in the dry period when the worst of the summer heat approaches. Farmers across Southeast Asia are scorching their fields (or the virgin forest) of excess vegetation in the viciously myopic hope of wringing another year of fertility from the taxed soil. So the ominous smoke of slash-and-burn agriculture, which I had expected (and found in great quantity) in Laos, is now omnipresent in Northern Thailand as well. I’ve been told that this is the worst pollution in the region’s history, and I believe it. The greyness coats my contact lenses with abrasive grit, suffuses everything with a faint acrid stink, and at times runs so thick it’s hard to spot the sun (admittedly a blessing at midday). With not a drop of rain in five months (nor any expected for three more), and the air absolutely motionless, it seems it will be some time before Chiang Mai becomes fit for human habitation once again. And yet here I’ll be. At least work is picking up.
At least while I cower in the conditioned air of my apartment, hiding from Asia’s justifiably legendary air pollution, I will at least have time for some blogging. Tonight is a time for transcription, though it may take some time: my notebook scribblings are nearly illegible even to me, a fact of which I’m vaguely proud.
In the meantime, it’s time for Paul Literary Review!!! Yay! On my vacation (which ended eons too early), I got fifty pages into Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 before losing patience with its endlessly self-referential humour and slow pace. I’ll give it another shot in a few days – I’m fairly certain I’m the only person alive who hasn’t read this book.
Instead I ran through Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, which delighted me by making a thoroughly ludicrous scenario (life trapped in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, for anyone who’s been under a rock since 2002) audaciously believable, and then making it bloody entertaining. It’s a quick and rewarding read – I highly recommend it to anyone capable of silencing their inner skeptic for a day or so.
Whereas I recommend Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist only to literary masochists and Republicans. I can’t remember the last time I read a book of such paralyzing stupidity – and certainly not one that came so highly recommended. I bought it based on the (somewhat hedgy) accolades on the back cover and some glowing word-of-mouth; had I been able to break the shrink-wrap, I’d have discovered that such esteemed critics as self-actualization guru Tony Robinson are the book’s most fervent proponents. And no wonder – The Alchemist is a babbly self-help book masquerading as a novel. Its infuriating (and incoherent) preachiness (about such lunacies as The Soul of the World – don’t ask) is equaled only by its textureless prose and miserably static characters. It's a quick read too, but that's still 90 minutes I've lost forever, and I'm deeply bitter about that - I could have wasted that time playing World of Warcraft, dammit! If you’ve been fortunate enough not to read this embarrassingly lame book, then keep it that way; if you once suffered through it, know that I share your pain.
Ok, more blogging to come ASAP – and some photos and (gasp!) video of my Laotian pratfalls!
Namely the choking grey miasma that now hangs over the city. The burning season has begun, late in the dry period when the worst of the summer heat approaches. Farmers across Southeast Asia are scorching their fields (or the virgin forest) of excess vegetation in the viciously myopic hope of wringing another year of fertility from the taxed soil. So the ominous smoke of slash-and-burn agriculture, which I had expected (and found in great quantity) in Laos, is now omnipresent in Northern Thailand as well. I’ve been told that this is the worst pollution in the region’s history, and I believe it. The greyness coats my contact lenses with abrasive grit, suffuses everything with a faint acrid stink, and at times runs so thick it’s hard to spot the sun (admittedly a blessing at midday). With not a drop of rain in five months (nor any expected for three more), and the air absolutely motionless, it seems it will be some time before Chiang Mai becomes fit for human habitation once again. And yet here I’ll be. At least work is picking up.
At least while I cower in the conditioned air of my apartment, hiding from Asia’s justifiably legendary air pollution, I will at least have time for some blogging. Tonight is a time for transcription, though it may take some time: my notebook scribblings are nearly illegible even to me, a fact of which I’m vaguely proud.
In the meantime, it’s time for Paul Literary Review!!! Yay! On my vacation (which ended eons too early), I got fifty pages into Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 before losing patience with its endlessly self-referential humour and slow pace. I’ll give it another shot in a few days – I’m fairly certain I’m the only person alive who hasn’t read this book.
Instead I ran through Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, which delighted me by making a thoroughly ludicrous scenario (life trapped in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, for anyone who’s been under a rock since 2002) audaciously believable, and then making it bloody entertaining. It’s a quick and rewarding read – I highly recommend it to anyone capable of silencing their inner skeptic for a day or so.
Whereas I recommend Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist only to literary masochists and Republicans. I can’t remember the last time I read a book of such paralyzing stupidity – and certainly not one that came so highly recommended. I bought it based on the (somewhat hedgy) accolades on the back cover and some glowing word-of-mouth; had I been able to break the shrink-wrap, I’d have discovered that such esteemed critics as self-actualization guru Tony Robinson are the book’s most fervent proponents. And no wonder – The Alchemist is a babbly self-help book masquerading as a novel. Its infuriating (and incoherent) preachiness (about such lunacies as The Soul of the World – don’t ask) is equaled only by its textureless prose and miserably static characters. It's a quick read too, but that's still 90 minutes I've lost forever, and I'm deeply bitter about that - I could have wasted that time playing World of Warcraft, dammit! If you’ve been fortunate enough not to read this embarrassingly lame book, then keep it that way; if you once suffered through it, know that I share your pain.
Ok, more blogging to come ASAP – and some photos and (gasp!) video of my Laotian pratfalls!
3 comments:
life of pi was wonderful. I'm curious to know your interpretation of the ending...
catch-22 took me three attempts to finally finish, but when I did I was amazed. it's one of my all-time fave books. I want to BE yossarian.
The same thing happened to me with Catch 22! I could only get through the first 60 pages and i gave up... too slow and military for me.
I also attempted and failed to finish Catch-22 on two separate occasions.
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