Soniah: And Another One

So there he was, launched on a tide of critical praise and publisher’s money, hottest thing in literary fiction north of the Border and a long way south, surest of sure things. Except that nothing is ever certain in publishing. That chorus of praise for The Rising Sun didn’t translate into sales.

Soniah: Daddy's Girl

Over in Egypt Hind el-Hinnawy dares to have a child out of wedlock and then demands a DNA test for the denying Dad. Hind is my type of girl, and her own Daddy, I think, is one every girl should wish for.
"Go teach your daughter some values! It's a scandal, and you are filming it! Go fix your daughter's mess!"
"She did not make a mess!" Mr. Hinnawy retorted. "It's only a scandal for you and those like you!"

Soniah: Ayn Rand

I read Ayn Rand in college for the first time when Jen from Texas recommmended her. Loved the titles of her three novels
We, The Living
The Fountainhead
Atlas Shrugged
My favorite was and remains We, The Living, perhaps because it reads most like a novel with philosophy rather than the other way around. I think the image of a girl leaving behind spots of blood in a snow smutted terrain has influenced me in many ways.

Soniah: Hurrah I Am Not Alone

As anyone who knows me will know that revising my novel these days is killing me. I'm all a blur of tears and fears. Glad to know then that I am in good company. Mary Anne Mohanraj is procrastinating over her second novel The Arrangement, and over at moorishgirl, Laila Lalami is procrastinating over revisions for her umcoming debut short story collection The Things That Death Will Buy.
Following read courtesy of her:
Of all the afflictions of the old school, surely the most entrenched and significant was procrastination. Anyone can procrastinate, of course - anyone with a tendency to perfectionism and a horror of imagined drudgery - but writers have had a special relationship with it.

Soniah: A Woman's Story

When women write about their wars, wars that happen to be closer to home, or even in the home, we are labeled "confessional."

Incest is a crime, a terror, a journey none of us should ever have to take, but do. Sue William Siverman's memoir Because I Remember Terror Father, I Remember You seems particularly poignant.
Akhil Sharma's novel An Obedient Father, is from the point of view of a father molestor.
I wonder though when South Asian women will write memoirs about such a thing. Will their sense of indignance ever rise over their sense of shame. I hope so.

I just had the miserable thought of a South Asian Daddy penning his side of the story for lack of shame.

to soniah with thanks

somehow, dear soniah, your post has propelled me to start that novel of mine, to inflict terrible pain and suffering upon myself (and perhaps others). hopefully you will be there to catch me when i stumble and fall, and then you'll dust me off and put me right back on that pedestal i have built for myself/my writerly ambitions;)

speaking of which, i read a very interesting essay by susan sontag (god bless her soul) in this book, which reminded me of you. the title of the essay is Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 as needed. Some of Sontag's nuggets of wisdom regarding rewriting:

though rewriting sounds like effort, it is actually the most pleasurable part. sometimes the only pleasurable part...let's say, it's a mess. but you have a chance to fix it. you try to be deeper. or clearer. or more eloquent...you try to liberate it....or let's say, it's going well...you find yourself taking pleasure-a reader's pleasure-in what's there on the page.

writing is finally a series of permissions you give yourself to be expressive in certain ways. to invent. to leap. to fly. to fall.

that's why we are all here, isn't it?

Soniah: To Shikha with Love

While revising I procrastinate, while procrastinating I often come across terribly interesting sites. This site is particularly for you Shikha: How to write a novel in a hundred days or less. It's chockful of interseting nuggets.
Here's day 60
If you have written five pages a day for the last 60 days, you have written about 90,000 words.

Soniah: Re-Vision

Right now I am in the revision process for An Isolated Incident and suddenly I'm wondering if I can write at all. It's like giving birth- all very natural- and then seeing the infant for the first time and thinking 'oh shit- NOW comes the hard labor of turning this mewling creature into a decent human being.'
This is pretty much what revising a novel is like for me. I keep having to remind myself that revision literally means re-vision: not just simply correcting grammar and choosing appropirate diction but looking clearly at the whole with the ability to cut, cut, cut.

Soniah: Writers on Writers Who Inspired them

The NYT Book Review has asked a group of fiction writers, age 40 or younger, to name the writer or writers who had most influenced their work and to explain how.
With Susan Choi, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nell Freudenberger, Jhumpa Lahiri, JT LeRoy, Maile Meloy, Gary Shteyngart, Zadie Smith and Colson Whitehead.

Soniah: Marrying the Maid

Women in staff support are the new sirens because, as a guy I know put it, they look upon the men they work for as "the moon, the sun and the stars." It's all about orbiting, serving and salaaming their Sun Gods.

Susan Sontag: above the obits

another topic which soniah and i have discussed : the various obits of susan sontag and how many praised her or booed her. i found this article very interesting because it talks about how the media can manufacture a life after death.

Soniah: On Writing At Night

The wonderful little article Shikha refers to in her blog post below is by Meg Wolitzer. Wolitzer's article is on writing, both the fast and the slow, though neither being necessarily 'better', although slow and posthumous are the more celebrated of the two, and that when you're pulling an all nighter you pay with dark circles.
Of the latter I can vouch. The quintessential night owl, most of my writing takes place after midnight. When I was young, and more importantly childless, I would savor my midnight feasts- nothing moving in the dark save my fingers on the keyboard and my mind.
Of course then I lived in Pakistan, fairyland of live-in domestic help. I could go to bed at 10 am and wake up at 10 pm and the hours in between could function perfectly well without me.
Coming to America changed this:
1) live in domestics disappeared
2) I got married and my husband wanted to spend some daylight dates with me- though I still managed to keep some semblance of my nocturnal hours- and
3) the real grind- I began to have children.
Children demanded I sleep at night since I had to be up with them during the day.
(Lest any antifeminist Caitlin Flanagan sort points a crooked finger and me and say's aha, let me say that I love my children way more than writing (actually go ahead, point, why should I care?))
I guess I want it all- home, husband, family, and a career. I guess in a teeny way I'm lucky that the career path I've chosen (or did it choose me?) can be executed while at home. That's where the luck departs for working from home is a pitfall in itself, a domain of a million distractions rather than the one lone water cooller in the hall, add two toddlers to it and I'm literally writing sentences between wiping noses, fetching water, now preparing chicken nuggets, and now more water- no, scratch that, they want juice.
I'm resilient I suppose, but unfortunately my energy level is not. Gone are the days I could manage being up three nights in a row. Now, I need my sleep. I want my sleep. Hell, I like my sleep. Waves of insiration can no longer be ridden at supersonic speed till they naturally break. Instead I have to find time for them, and more than time, that writer's curse- stamina to sit down and be productive when you'd much rather be doing anything else. Stamina to not question why exactly you're dong it.
Motive, however, is a whole other part of the story.

she writes at night...and falls asleep

a wonderful article in the washington post about something soniah and i talk about frequently: writing at night, in one shot, or atleast trying to ride the wave of inspiration till we are knocked down. with 2 husbands, four kids, a fish and stacks of unread books between us, it sometimes is an acheivement to make it to our keyboard.

Soniah: The Duds and the Gems

A little while ago I was newly moved to Denver, very, very pregnant and didn't know a soul in town. So I decided to do something about it: I started a book club in the lovely retirement community I was living in by simply placing an ad. in their newsletter, a few sentences about sitting on dew drunk grass, under a gregarious tree, ravished by a breeze, all while discussing a book.The first meeting took place at my house on my back porch (we never did sit on grass under any tree, and it was books rather than breeze which ravished us). Five women showed up that first meeting where I'd chosen to read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. I was the only younger women, the rest were between ages sixty to eighty and it continued to be that way as the book club grew over the next three years. We had ex-school teachers, a prison administration worker, an ex- Egyptian diplomat's wife, grandmothers, and me a new mother and all of us had either a cat, a dog, or birds.Slowly but surely through the books we chose together and then discussed, sometimes for only moments between talk about someone's hip surgery, the lovin' ways of the US, panty hose and it's inital problems and foreign policy, we got too know each other- who stuck to wine, red or white, who was perpetually on a diet, who liked creamy soft foods like salmon cream cheese, who preferred the crisp crunch of dried onion crackers and pecan nuts and, inbetween these mouthfuls, who was happy and what happy meant and how, in life, the very definition of happiness changed.Sometimes all happiness meant was to come upon a new book, perhaps never to be read had it not been recommeded here, which could go on to become beloved. We read so many books- White Mughals by William Dalyrymple, The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, - some we all liked, some we all disliked, and most we were divided about, but there was one book that we all absolutely loved.We came to this book with great moans and groans. It was a 'western' book about cowboys and, supposedly, Indians, and white women. I was not the only one adamant that I did not want to read a cowboy book, for God's sake I couldn't even sit through a spaghetti western, never the less we were coerced into giving this novel a try. There ensued great confusion over the title. Was it white brides, a hundred women, a one white bride woman, and finally upon an internet check did the correct one emerge: One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus a Colorado writer.Well I assure you though I rather grudgingly opened this novel within five pages I was grateful for having given it a chance, and upon being done I was sold. On this novel and on what book clubs are really all about: indeed to meet people, and make new friends, and get to know the human soul by its eqivalent in the written word, but most of all to be given exposure to, indeed to read those books I would have never have picked up myself.To find that one gem that makes you believe in books all over again is worth any number of duds. This horror shudder oohaah cowboy book is such a one.

Soniah: Fame- A Kick in the Rump

Ahh fame, fame what a kick in the rump you are.Have taken the below from Absolutewrite.com a really groovy site for freelance writers because I'm hugely interested in the nature of fame especially it's ephemeral side, and why people consider writing to be a one way ticket to fame when it's anything but..."Sometimes life, as well as writing careers, can take an unexpected detour along the way. Take the case of John P. Marquand.He was born in Delaware in 1893, and finished his college education in 1915, just in time to join the Massachusetts National Guard and spend some time in France as an artillery officer in World War I.After coming home, he had brief careers in journalism and advertising, but found his heart to be in the writing of fiction. He began to get published in 1922. Most of what he wrote were "literary" novels, but he did a few in the detective genre, titles like MING YELLOW and DON'T ASK QUESTIONS. In 1937, he won the Pulitzer Prize for a comedy of manners entitled THE LATE GEORGE APLEY. Fame at last, everybody thought.The problem is that few, if any, read those books today. His fame as a writer rests on the six spy novels that he wrote concerning the quiet, unthreatening Mr. Moto. These six stories were masterpieces of setting and characterization, and led to movies and heaps of praise for Marquand. He never understood it, though. Before his death in 1960, Marquand told an interviewer that the Moto books were a "disgrace," written only to have some money for his family."George Alex Windish has been writing for many years, and has become a better typist, if nothing else. He has placed nearly a dozen short stories of horror and science fiction, has had a weekly column in a local Baltimore newspaper, and has written for and edited COUNTRY LINE, a small Pennsylvania magazine. He has also done ad copy and correspondence for businesses. He has long been a fan of genre literature and truly tacky movies, as well as being a collector of vintage records. Contact him at Imagineer7777@aol.com."

Soniah: India, Pakistan, Movies

Soniah: India, Pakistan, Movies
India and Pakistan have been on a role for the past few years making movies about each other. I recently watched one such film- Lakshya. I'd been eagerly waiting for it because it was scripted by Farhan Akhtar who wrote Dil Chata Hai, a film I really enjoyed.Lakshya is about a guy who has no damn direction in life and finds it by joining the army, from where he's then stationed at Kargil. So far okay- then the Pakistani army (disguised as militants) come into the picture. They're all portrayed as big ass shalwar wearing, screaming, weird talking blokes. I'm not offended on account of being Paksitani- I'm offended on account of being a writer and seeing such silly characters, eyebrow cocked to show their villanous dispositions, wooden dialogue, for moments at a time it seems they'd turn on each other if they liked just for the sake of it.Please- give me a break. Don't insult viewers with such drivel. If you want to make a good movie and want a good guideline watch Mission Kashmir. (And that goes for the Pakistani film industry too).I read somewhere that Lakshya was not drivel at all. That it admirably showed the Pakistani army as humans with brains. Shit, I thought, this person has got to have seen some really bad shit to think this shit was good- what's he been watching Pakistani's dressed as baboons.The latest love affair of a movie between the two countries is yash Chopra's Veer Zaara. For all the recent traffic of Indians into Paksitan since the 2004 cricket match, has no one told Yash that No One in Pakistan greets each other with an adab!!!

Soniah: Letter to Santa

Check out my letter to Book Biz Santa over at Buzz, Balls and Hype.

Soniah: Frosted Yellow Willows

Sometimes some people are born in the wrong time and the wrong place. Does that mean though that their life is useless? Consider Anna May Wong (frosted yellow willows)- a Chinese actress in early 20th century Hollywood yet watching Causian actresses playing the lead role of a Chinese women.
Anna's biggest disappointment professionally occurred during this period. It was losing a part in MGM's great film The Good Earth. She tested extensively for the roles of Paul Muni's wife, O Lan, and that of his concubine. The parts were eventually played by Luise Rainer and Tillie Losch respectively. Rainer won the Academy Award for 1937 for her terrific performance as O Lan. (read the 12/14/2004 Imagine blog entry by the wonderful commedienne Margaret Cho)
Sure we've come a long way- only imagine white women playing the chinese women in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. But there are other frontiers to conquer. Mathematician John Nash's wife Alicia Larde was from El Salvador. However in the movie version of his life, A Beautiful Mind, based on the book by Sylvia Nasar, Jennifer Connelly played his wife as a white woman because the studio executives felt white would garner a bigger audience. Something here is not right, me thinks. And if based on real life does a film have an obligation to imitate that life exactly as it is?

Soniah: The Nature of Hatred

Robin Hemley dares you to start a sentence with I hate people who...
and then dare to go up to them and tell them you hate them.
You can't, can you?
Is it because you're a coward? Or because you're caring? Or because you think you might need to be in their good books at some point so why put your foot in your mouth?
And really is it any easier saying I love you?
The last time I saw my paternal grandfather-a man I probably met all of three or four times- I remember wanting to hug him, but not daring to because I was shy and didn't want to look foolish.
He died before I ever got to see him again and one of my biggest regrets is the inhibition that held me back from a hug, from saying I love you.

Soniah: The Mother

Truths are hard creatures to come about especially those between family members. Who has ever had the courage to come out and say they hate their mother or their daughter, or vice versa. The Mother is an excellent movie which dares to show hatred in its many facets. A must watch film if only because someday we might all be in the position of the protagonist- old, alone, with too much time on our hands and wanting to orgasm.
The script is penned by Hanif Kureishi.

Soniah: First I Rescue Then I Rape

Imagine someone saving you from the tsunami only to ruin you minutes later.

Her sister soon dampened any idea of a quick marriage: She said gossip already was swirling around the village, where rape brings stigma and shame to the victim rather than the rapist.

Soniah: Yeah Torture

The less I say about this the better for my blood pressure. Natural Disasters are bad enough but manmade ones are evn more heartbreaking...

The United States is being transformed into a country that condemned torture and forbade its use to one that practices torture routinely.

no more mango....please!!!!

yes folks, i've had it up to here (hand right under my nose), with 'easy exotic' south asian literature. they either roll out the magical realism carpet, trying to imitate the two great R's (Roy & Rushdie) or else the characters and plots are crazily convoluted to up the cool quotient. its been a long time since a South Asian book has come into the scene quietly and gently swept me (and probably others) off my feet. or made me fall off my chair, jump out of bed, or sit on the toilet for hours for that matter. where are the experimentors of language? the outlaws of plot? the genre benders?

someone who is being touted as the literary offspring of R&R and the god child of Kundera is Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi . While I haven't read the book, I have heard mostly negative comments from other South Asians along the lines of 'not original,' ' language too flowery,' 'magical realism copycat' or else 'Siddharth who?'. which really does make me wonder what is going on? I went to Shanghvi's website and was suprised by the pink in it, the glorious peacock on the left of the page, and this photo of the author. what I wanted was an excerpt of the book, a flavor of this much touted author's prose that could not be had through peacocks, turbans or that killer silver necklace around Shanghvi's neck! a summary of the book can be found here. somehow, a line from The Beatles' song 'Baby You're a Rich Man' comes to mind:

How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?

Soniah: Tsunami Prostitution

As if lost lives numbering 150, 000 is not bad enough there is now rape, incest and kids kidnapped for prostitution occurring too. I guess for some people this is a blessing in disguise since they can milk the sadness, depression and dearth for what they want.

Soniah: The Little Book that Could

Chances are you've heard of a novel called The Kite Runner, and its author Khaled Hosseini. If you haven't chances are you will. Suddenly everyone's reading the novel that came out in hardback- didn't do too well, then came out in paperback and started selling like crazy. Lesson 1: forget hardback and publish all books in paperback. Outcome 1: all the new paperbacks fail miserably. Lesson 2: the original book had a year to create buzz in hardback which then went on to rocket the paperback sales. Conclusion: you can't have the chicken without the egg blah, blah, blah. Lesson for me: My paperback original is going to be expected to do well even though it won't have had the benefit of life as hardback for a year. Oh well...As for Hosseini, his sleeper success has made it on the NYT bestseller list and gotten him a review of how this has happened. A contradiction that caught me: In the beginning of the article-Without any significant national publicity - no recommendation by Oprah Winfrey or a morning television show, no superstar author backed by a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign - the book has steadily climbed the best-seller lists, rising as high as No. 5 on the paperback best-seller list of The New York Times and selling more than 500,000 copies in seven months, a significant achievement for a literary novel. And towards near the end-Thanks to heavy promotion by the Penguin sales force, it received the endorsements of Book Sense, the consortium of independent bookstores, which put the book on its list of 76 new and noteworthy books. My short, sweet review: I read the Kite Runner when it first came out. It's a good read about a little boy raped by little boys, and of course so much so much else. There's a bit of co-incidence that jarred me at the end, but I cried, I laughed and if a novel gets you to do both, it's well worth reading. And it's popularity, I think, show that American are open to reading well written books about other cultures and worlds.