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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.

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  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 ...

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  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.

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  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

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  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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