Dubious Duds

Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil starts like a foreward and that alone got me hooked to dwelve further. Brilliant gambit, if I may say so.

Actually, it was initially the size (actually lack) of B & V which prompted me to pick it from the tens of titles lining The Times Book Store’s “New Arrival” shelf during a lunch break.

Ever seen George Orwell’s Animal Farm? B & V is about the same size.

The summary on the back cover (Blurb, is it?) doesn’t tell you much about the storyline, except that it involved an author, a taxidermist, a donkey and a monkey.

It was only upon Googling the title up later that I came to know B & V was part fiction part allegory on the Holocaust (look it up if you don’t know what this word means).

A few reviewers compared Martel with M. Night Shyamalan.

(Not the “I see dead people” Shyamalan. The Happening and The Last Airbender etc Shyamalan.

Yes; the one (or two) hit wonder.)

Having found Martel’s writing style to my liking, I was quite flabbergasted with the bad press. Could it really be THAT bad a book?

Writing is a tedious, lonely job.

Writers hope to excite, to enthrall, to give hours of page-turning moments, to provide imaginative avenues and probing insights, or to simply to help readers pass dreadful waits.

For your work to be called a dud is certainly a downer. Especially if you slogged long and hard to come out with your so-called masterpiece.

I suppose Martel took all the criticism in stride as he did mentioned somewhere of working on another tale. Kudos to him.

According to Stephen King, writers are needy. He’s probably correct. Otherwise why do you spend hours, months and, even, years writing, rewriting to get it right for the reader, even if they are purely imaginary?

So, will I be getting the book then?

I’m thinking I will after all.

It might not be are emotionally charged as one of Leon Uris’s epic, but a book that can pass the hours in minutes is worthy of the attention span.

Insightful Mergers

I used to be a bona-fide, die hard believer in the premise of our Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Berhad.*

My first car was a white, black-bumpered, Satria 1.3GL before circumstances and bad financial/personal management saw me letting it go and replacing with a Proton Iswara 1.3GL.

As many Proton car owners would probably attest, hassle-free is definitely not something you equate with this particular car maker.

I persisted with a third model, the Gen2, and Proton rewarded my somewhat naïve "loyalty" with a horrendous lemon and after a few years of nervous, hair-pulling moments and much, much, outflow of money for repairs etc, I bid goodbye to the brand.

Never sagain, I promise myself.

By then, I had managed to experience the kind of mouse-squeak, bottle cap-rattle free motoring that should be the right of motorists paying their hard earn money – first a second hand Suzuki Swift, then an Inokom Matrix and a Perodua Viva.

The Swift had an early episode of a clogged up fuel filter during one early morning road trip south, but replacement was cheap at RM25, and then it was all fine and dandy, and now still providing its services to my brother in law, it’s 16-years age notwithstanding.

Yes, I accept that no car maker can assure total reliability, but in my case, two out of three models seemed like a chronic lack of a QC culture prevalent in the national car maker.

Just yesterday, I posted a short advise to another Gen2 owner whose engine temp had risen, much like what I had experienced countless number of occasions with my own before I said goodbye.

What irks me the most (and probably other Proton owners in similar predicament) is the stock standard answers we usually get when sending our cars for repairs, warranties etc: “Biasalah, Proton.”

As if that makes it all blipping all right. A kind of take it or take it proposition.

Just like the current “We want it, and we want it no matter what” attitude in pushing for a merger with Perodua.

Proton probably needs this to happen more than the latter. Reading between the lines of Proton’s man-in-charge statement seemed to point to it haranguing the Government to press its case home.

I have given up on the Proton ideals. So reading statements like “I strongly feel there is room to collaborate. It's not about Proton and Perodua, it's about the Malaysian automotive industry” is so gag-inducing.

The Malaysian automotive industry? Really? In what way? My feeble, non automotive-industry savvy mind can’t see how a merger of Proton and Perodua makes sense vis-à-vis the Malaysian motoring crowd, other than having lesser and lesser choices for the low-mid, mid price ranges.

A merger would mean that some line-up needs to be consolidated. I’m guessing the one doing the pushing for a combo would also be the one deciding which models are delisted.

Examples of overlaps: Saga and Myvi. Savvy (is this still in production? Not I really care) and Viva. Persona/Gen2 and Alza.

(Of course, this is the kind of worse-case scenario, conspiratorial outlook. Guesses. Opinions. Everyone’s entitled to them. This is mine.)

This is not the first time Proton’s man at the helm is pushing for a merger.

Usually I don’t give a hoot about what Proton does or doesn’t do. Not anymore.

Inspira a Lancer ciplak: don’t care. Exora going EV: whatever.

But a merger that might just consolidate the kind of “Biasalah, Proton” take-it-or-take-it attitude?

This I care.

Care that enough care needs to be put into its deliberation. Care that both sides are heard. Care that the interests of the motoring public at large is also considered.

Will they?

PS: Honda Insight at RM98,000: Cheapest Hybrid. My emphasis.

*Blame this on my once-upon-a-time TDM-reverence.

Asgradian Thoughts

Unlike the yesteryears, drivers in the morning commute no longer need to endure banal chats and rants of radio deejays with info-focused radio stations around, namely Radio Ikim (for the spiritually inclined) and BFM (for the business orientated).

This morning, for example, I learnt the following from BFM’s much recommended Breakfast Grill:
In Norway, 73 percent of its populace is with tertiary qualifications and their primary schoolers do not undergo graded examination.

Instead the examinations are geared towards assessing if the teaching force (schools, teachers) are doing enough and equipped for the task and responsibility.

For the children, grading starts in their secondary schooling years.

Primary school goers still do homework, learn Norwegian English (hmm, what does this mean?), Math and Science amongst others.

My immediate thoughts were: how carefree – and reminisce that things were not that much different for Malaysian kids all those years ago when the only exam to worry about was the Penilaian Darjah 5 (yep, that’s how old I am).

Even then, not scoring there is not that big a deal although doing so would help get you a shot in one of the, admittedly not many, boarding schools.

Unlike today, tuitions for primary schools weren’t a norm. Schooling days consist of cycling/walking/bus-sing(?) to class in the morning and back in the afternoon, homework or play or both, then off to mengaji Quran in the evenings.

Perhaps I am talking only of my own experience, but my memories of how it was with friends seemed to place this as quite widespread a phenomena.

Thus with this in mind, I am rethinking if indeed the move to scupper the UPSR is a good one. Get rid of any unnecessary stress – and tension – creating item on the children’s part out of the way in the way of building their educational foundation.

Test the teachers and the schools instead by way of the non-graded assessment.

Can we do this, I wonder? What are the pitfalls of doing so?

Do we EVEN need to rock the boat?

Yes, we do. A young nation in a rocketingly competitive world, our children just cannot afford a dysfunctional education system lacking clear direction.

Our University international standing seems indicative of this. University Malaya, arguably the country top tertiary institution, have never been able to replicate its 89th THES (formerly The Times' Higher Education Supplement) ranking of 2004 and is at 207th placing this year.

So, how?