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Thor Kah Hoong's Scattered Brain.

Thor Kah Hoong's back with a desultory article about... er... well, lots of random stuff. And a poem about Hemingway. Okay okay I admit it! I have no idea what he's on about half the time!
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  1. Lydia Teh18/7/06 10:41 am

    That makes two of us, Ted. I gave up reading the article halfway as I got lost. Most of the time his articles are too "brainy" for me and I'm just an average Star reader, as Sharon might say.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted Mahsun18/7/06 11:18 am

    Ha ha! Funny isn't it? But somehow, I still find his articles wonderful to read. Must be the way he strings words together.

    ReplyDelete
  3. bibliobibuli18/7/06 4:57 pm

    sometimes his articles are wonderful - one or two have been classic (his crit of harmony silk factory and petr ho davies short stories) mostly they are a total ramble and offputting for most star readers ...

    it seems to be a column about "look how clever i am to have picked up these books you've never heard of" when it should be a column about "look guys, you are going to enjoy this and this ..."

    it's a wasted opportunity to draw in potential readers and i feel quite cross about it at a time when reading needs all the convincing advocates it can get ...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ted Mahsun18/7/06 5:16 pm

    I enjoyed his review of tash aw's book very much but did not read the other one you mentioned.

    You are right that the column seems like a show-off soapbox for him but I've come to accept that maybe all this show-offiness is an eccentricity of small bookstore owners :D

    I don't mind it in particular. When there's potential readers to convince, at least there's Daphne Lee and all those other book writers at the Star, not to mention you, and Lydia.

    ReplyDelete
  5. bibliobibuli18/7/06 9:27 pm

    ted - there's not enough of us writing about books and there's not enough space in the papers

    which is why your voice in cyberspace is a very welcome one

    i don't mind thor's cumudgeonly tone - in fact i like it myself - but perlease focus!!!

    Here's the Peter Ho Davies article

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ted Mahsun18/7/06 9:58 pm

    Haha! "Curmudgeonly" is a nice word to describe Thor's ramblings!

    Thanks for the link.

    BTW, Sharon, I emailed you just a while ago and I'm wondering if you got it... or whether it fell into your inbox's black hole...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lydia Teh19/7/06 10:36 am

    Sharon, I agree with your take on Thor's selection of books : most of them I've never heard of.

    Ted, 'eccentricity of small bookstore owners' - I don't personally know any of these folks but you may have a point there.

    ReplyDelete

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