The Malaysian Insider :: Books
The Malaysian Insider :: Books |
| Elif Shafak is the first of three Authors of the Day at the London Book Fair Posted: 23 Jan 2013 02:20 AM PST
The French-born author (picture) was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2008 with her novel "The Bastard of Istanbul," while "Honor" placed on the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize longlist and "The Forty Rules of Love" was nominated for the 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Shafak is to appear at the London Book fair on Tuesday, April 16, with authors for the Monday and Wednesday yet to be announced. The fair runs April 15-17 at Earls Court, London. http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk – AFP/Relaxnews |
| Posted: 22 Jan 2013 05:42 PM PST Jan 23 – "Just breathing can be such a luxury sometimes." — Walter Kirn, Up in the Air I have been living through a series of terminal transfers and airport arrivals – Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Singapore, Kota Kinabalu – and I don't stay long enough before I have to depart again.
I have meetings, meetings and more meetings. I can't remember if I'm pitching to clients or if I am the client myself. I give talks, I stand up all day talking and talking. My feet are weary, no shoes are made to keep me comfortable for these many, many hours. They always run out of water; they always underestimate how much I can drink, how thirsty I can be. They don't satisfy me much. And in the evenings, I always return to an empty hotel room, a clean king-size bed, fresh sheets and fluffed-up pillows. It looks perfect and is perfectly depressing. It is when you have to sleep alone. There can be no view outside these windows, no beaches or sloping hills or endless sea, that can compare with the sight of you lying in bed beside me. "You long for a windfall that will let you quit and pursure your great hobby."—Walter Kirn, Up in the Air One fine day, he decides he is terribly weary. One hotel room too many. One nondescript meal from restaurants that all look the same. The meetings and the clients, they can wait. They can survive without him, they'll have to. He packs his suitcase swiftly (this comes easy with practice) and grabs his jacket. He wheels his suitcase out of the room, into the elevator and down to the lobby. He checks out with a smile; has the bellhop get him a cab. He tells the taxi driver to head to the airport. Which terminal? The nearest, please.
Finally he gets on his plane, puts his laptop bag away in the overhead compartment and settles into his seat. There is a nice lady next to him who tells him the time. Only two and half hours more, dearie. Okay, right. Thanks. Two and half hours later, the plane lands and he begins to breathe again. "We're a telephone family, strung out along the wires, sharing our news in loops and daisy chains. We don't meet face-to-face much, and when we do there's a dematerialized feeling, as though only half of our molecules are present." — Walter Kirn, Up in the Air There is a lesson in this story; I trust it is simply Do Not Do What He Did. Your mothers warned you against guys like me, they did. At the airport, his suitcase is the last to come through on the conveyor belt. The girl at the taxi counter tells him there is a 30-minute wait – cue the explosion of expletives – but tells him he can take the express train into the city and grab a cab at the central station instead. It'll probably get you to your destination a lot faster, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Who said customer service was dead? Bless you. Bless you, my dear. He sits in the train and looks out the window at the world passing by. He sees only one thing and it is not the scenery. Less than 30 minutes later, he is at the station and gets a cab, the first available one, apparently, for the past two hours given the rain and flash floods in the city. The world has been crashing down while he was gone. But now, now things are alright. There is something quite beautiful about a city freshly scrubbed and smelling clean and pure after a storm. It smells of hope. "It's the little deceptions that no one catches that are going to dissolve it all someday. We'll all look at clocks and we won't believe the hands."—Walter Kirn, Up in the Air I tell the taxi driver to stop outside the guardhouse; I can walk in by myself. He's a nice Chinese uncle, been driving for 40 years, he tells me. Never seen a storm like this, floodwater rushing in faster than you can blink, he had to seek refuge in a nearby kopitiam and take an early dinner. Taxi drivers don't often get early dinners, it seems. He had taken me home through a shortcut, through Brickfields. The smell of jasmine was in the air, as determinedly present as the giant, bold Bollywood-like billboards and all the bright, bright lights. I felt like a kid in the cinema, as though I was in a movie myself. The crescendo, the climax: coming soon to a theatre near you. But now it's just me. I wheel the suitcase past the guards towards my block. I take the elevator up to my floor. I stand outside my door and I hit the speed-dial on my cell. "Hi dear, I just got back." "Good lor. Was it far from dinner to the hotel?" "Uhm, no, not that far." "Better get showered, ok? You must be tired." "You have no idea. Wait, someone's ringing the doorbell. I'll call you back." I put my phone back into my jacket pocket and hit our doorbell. It rings twice before I hear you shuffling to the door. I imagine the bafflement in your face, then your astonishment when you peek through the peephole. You open the door with a flourish, and I greet you with a smile and softly announce: "Surprise." "The atom was split by persistence."— Up in the Air, by Walter Kirn (Doubleday, 2001) * Kenny still hates flying but reminds himself of who's waiting for him when he gets home. Read more stories at http://lifeforbeginners.com. |
LONDON, Jan 23 – Turkish writer Elif Shafak, of "The Forty Rules of Love" and "Honor," has been announced as the first of three Authors of the Day at the London Book Fair.
I check into hotels and I check out again. The names and the destinations begin to blur. They all have swimming pools and air-conditioned gyms. Housekeeping means fresh towels any time you want some, and tiny bottles of toiletries mysteriously materialising every day, like magic mushrooms.
There is a short but almost interminable wait at the ticketing counter. His number gets called eventually by the LED signboard above. He pays for the earliest ticket he can manage, waits on standby for an earlier flight still. Fully booked, none of the passengers fail to turn up and they fly off without him. Damn.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Books To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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