Poetry Exercise No. 16 : Triolet

Back to the poetry writing, after a very long rest period.

A cousin of the Rondeau, i.e. characterised by repeating lines/rhymes. Eight lines in total, with the first and second lines repeated in the seventh and eighth lines, and the first line echoed in the fourth line. Rhyme scheme - ABaAbbAB. So here is my triolet, on Casey:

I love my little Casey cat
I wish she loved me just a bit
Her pretty head I gently pat
I love my little Casey cat
But in return she throws a fit
At my touch she will snarl and spit
I love my little Casey cat
I wish she loved me just a bit

Paws for the Cause

I feel truly honoured- got a flickr mail requesting for the use of my photo on icanhascheezburger.com. Purpose was to help publicise and raise awareness on the issue of homeless animals. I'm glad to be a part of this effort. Here's the LOL which was created from the photo of a sweet little anonymous kitten which I spotted in the cage outside Mt Pleasant clinic on East Coast Road. I don't know whether the kitten was eventually adopted but with sweet eyes like that, I would definitely be a fan.


moar funny pictures

If you want to do something for the community cats of Singapore, check out the Pawpledge and CWS links in the left column - make a contribution, volunteer, help care for a cat in your neighbourhood, starting this Friday, 12/12, or according to the lady who contacted me, "the twelfth of never - for too many pets, that is the sad truth."

More Jane

Further to my earlier post, Wannabe Jane, I have read all of 3 more Jane paralit books. For a change, one was a Persuasion rather than Pride & Prejudice knock-off!

Captain Wentworth's Diary is another effort by Amanda Grange to dig deep into the innermost thoughts and feelings of Jane Austen's heroes. It is pleasant and a nice enough read. Grange spends some time and effort on how Anne and Captain Wentworth first met and fell in love, and how their engagement was broken. The next section then goes into how he returned to England, to stay with his sister Mrs Croft and then meets Anne again. My main problem with the book is that there are no surprises, whether in the plot or in how the characters are developed. Grange could, for example, have spent more time on the relationship between Wentworth and his brother, or between Wentworth, Harville and Benwick, to bring out the cammeraderie and solidarity amongst the naval officers as a powerful sub-theme of the book. Alas for an opportunity missed.

I also finished reading The Way of the World (subsequently published as Mr Darcy's Daughters) and The Exploits and Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy, both by Elizabeth Aston. I started off enjoying Elizabeth Aston's books and it is perhaps fortunate that I started off with The True Darcy Spirit for if I had started off with The Way of the World I may not have picked up another book! Granted, one should not import expectations and views about the various characters in Pride & Prejudice into the reading of these Jane knock-offs, and they should probably be treated as totally separate books, but it is very hard to picture Darcy and Elizabeth trotting off to Constantinople just when their daughters go off to London for the first time! Darcy, the careful brother who took such great care of Georgiana? Elizabeth, who was so worried about the possible impact of her frivolous sister's trip to Brighton? It is just not consistent with what we know about these characters. For an author who is trading on Jane fans' love of her work and characters to get people to read/buy her work, I'd have liked to see greater efforts to be true to the characters. And this holds true even if the Darcys do not actually make an appearance in the books! Way of the World also suffers from too many undeveloped characters and plotlines; probably just too ambitious an undertaking in the first instance. As for Miss Alethea's exploits and adventures, they certainly take place at a breathless pace, so much so that one is a little tired of them by the time the book ends. Fortunately, Aston has developed as an author since these earlier efforts; I vastly prefer her subsequent books such as The True Darcy Spirit.

Thanks to my efforts, my mother has started reading these Jane paralit books too, the first being Capt Wentworth's Diary. I asked her how it was and she expressed some disappointment. Well, what does one expect? Just because it is Jane Austen paraliterature does not mean that it is anywhere near Jane's standards! One does not exactly expect these books to be in print 200 years into the future. But they are entertaining reads in themselves, well worth picking up to fill an idle hour.

Goodbye Hwei Yen

Singapore has been hit by terrorism in a totally unexpected way. Lo Hwei Yen, a 28-year old lawyer, was in Mumbai on business when the terrorists invaded the Trident-Oberoi hotel where she was staying. She was captured by the terrorists and shot in the head.

I look at the pictures of a warm, friendly girl and find it so shocking to think of how terrifying her last hours were. It was a fate she did not deserve, and neither did any of the other people who died at the hands of the terrorists.

I look at her photos and think that this could be anyone's daughter, anyone's sister, anyone's colleague, anyone's friend. And maybe that's why everyone in Singapore feel it so much. Singapore is such a small country. Her husband's family go to the same church I do, they went to the same schools as my family members did. We mourn for her because she is our daughter, sister, colleague and friend.

Rest in peace Hwei Yen.

What a difference a year makes

One year ago, I got home from my office retreat to find a small, orange kitten had joined the family. Yes, it has been one year since Orlando first made his way up our front driveway, past our front door and into our home, where he has remained ever since. My attempts to get him adopted were thwarted by my mother who refused to let him go.

So we kept Orlando. We fed him his 3 meals a day and he got to sleep in comfortable baskets or on the sofa rather than on the streets.

Today, the small, feeble little kitten with the distended stomach and furless belly has become a handsome boy with gorgeous orange fur. The haunted look in his eyes has gone, and he no longer eats as though every meal is his last. He is a sturdy cat, bigger than his two "uncles" and has started displaying alpha-male tendencies, chasing them and bullying them. He can be a little imperious and demanding, raising his little voice whenever he wants his food or a door opened for him.

But he retains still many cute little tricks from his kittenhood, like rushing up the stairs with you, to stop on the step just in front of you and hold his head up for a pat. He has a signature "flop" - which starts with rubbing his head on your foot, followed by a sideways forward roll his body and ending up with his body resting on both your feet. Is that cute or what.

So for all those people who are wondering whether they can cope with adopting one more stray cat - wonder no more. This is one good deed which really carries its own reward.

Singapore Biennale

The Singapore Biennale was first held in 2006. I was in the US at the time and so could not check it out. This time round, I decided to make the effort to visit the Biennale. So I took half-day leave and went to two of the venues - City Hall and the South Bank Development, taking in one exhibit at Raffles City en route.

I rather enjoyed the City Hall exhibits. My favourite - the great Google map of Singapore which covered the floor of the City Hall Chamber. It did not seem to be very exciting or innovative in the first instance but I was surprised at my own reaction to it. I felt really compelled to find my home and workplace and to stick a little label on the map. Unfortunately someone stuck a label on top of my house (they shd hv given out smaller labels). So it was a little frustrating. But what was also quite compelling was to watch other people's reactions/response to the map. Some just walked in and out. Others spent a long time pouring over the map, locating the buildings they knew. (I took a little video, available here - unfortunately the timing wasn't too good so there were not many people in the room.) A few other exhibits can be seen on my flickr site. There were a number of videos in the exhibition which sort of inspired me to take a few videos too. For many of the installation art pieces in the exhibition, it is important to walk around the exhibit and take it in from various angles. So the videos were trying to imitate the human eye's experience looking at the artwork. Does that sound like an attempt at art too, or just a little bit pretentious...

I rather liked the South Bank Development building. This was where the former Singapore Volunteer Corps was headquartered. It is a large, sprawling site with a few buildings on it, built in art deco style. My colleague had tied up with a friend of his, who is a volunteer guide, to give a little tour of the building so I met him and the little group he had gathered, to go through the exhibits.

It was good that we had a guide, as I didn't feel that the exhibits were as compelling and interesting as those in City Hall and so it was useful to have someone to raise points of interest, and engage the group in discussion. Of course, it was the notorious sugar sculpture Sweet September that everyone had to see. But the symbolism of the piece had been brought up so many times in the press that by the time I saw it, it had lost a little of its interest and novelty for me. Not to mention that it had decomposed considerably and was a little smelly downwind. I rather preferred instead some of the other exhibits - the charcoaled rooms, with black & white videos of the elements of the old South Bank building (creating a certain sense of nostalgia for days gone by), and the series of gorgeous photos of a man who wished for the moon, found it and didn't know what to do with it.

Ah yes - a profitable afternoon/evening.

Wannabe Jane

Over the past few months, I have been reading Jane Austen paraliterature. i.e. books inspired by the writings of Jane Austen, in particular, "Pride and Prejudice". How did this start? Of course, it is my mother's fault. She bought my cousin a birthday present, "Mr Darcy's Diary" by Maya Slater. Of course neither of us could resist reading it first. (Incidentally my gift was a spa treatment.) In the past, I do recall reading sequels such as Joan Aiken's "Mansfield Revisited" and Emma Tennant's "Pemberley" (recall this was really bad). But not much else.

I have now realised that over the past few years, in particular after the screening of the landmark BBC production of "Pride and Prejudice", Jane's characters and stories have inspired many writers to pick up the story where she left off. Specifically, most of these writers seem to be inspired by Colin Firth in a wet shirt. There's of course, the one and only "Bridget Jones' Diary". But to be fair, despite the name of the leading man, and the similarities to P&P plot lines, Bridget is her own woman and we love her, just as she is :-)

After reading through a few of these Jane Wannabe books, I thought I'd better start keeping track. By and large, they fall into a few categories:

• The alternate perspective: Principally, Darcy's. There're not one but two entitled "Mr Darcy's Diary". The first I read, by Maya Slater, portrays Darcy as a Regency Rake. Hmmm. I don't think so! But I liked the second, by Amanda Grange. It sounds like Darcy's voice throughout, and she expands on the action at critical points quite well, especially Darcy's search for Wickham and Lydia in London. She also expands the story a little at the end to include a Christmas at Pemberley. I just got a little tired of the word "satirical" especially in relation to Caroline Bingley - her "satirical" comment, look, etc. Another book in this category is Janet Aylmer's "Darcy's Story". That one reproduces massive chunks of dialogue from the original book (boring!), and doesn't really expand very much on the original story. Granted, there is some effort to expand on the relationship between Darcy and Georgiana in particular - but it's just not enough.


• The Sequel - ok I admit I can't remember what happened in the Joan Aiken and Emma Tennant sequels mentioned earlier. Maybe a re-read is necessary. But I did read the Mother of All Sequels, Sybil Brinton's "Old Friends and New Fancies", written in 1913, and which aims to provide a sequel to all the Jane Austen books! I admit that it is a major task and she gets kudos for effort. But at the end, there were too many threads to weave together, too many characters to follow-through on - at the end of it, I find I really don't care two hoots. What I did enjoy, however, were Elizabeth Aston's charming novels on the next generation of Darcys. I'm not too sure whether these are properly called "sequels" as they are self-contained stories in their own right. I've only read two - "The True Darcy Spirit", and "The Second Mrs Darcy". The characters have some connection to Mr and Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy, eg their daughters, Darcy's cousins, cousin's wife etc but the notable exceptions are Elizabeth and Mr Darcy who are only mentioned and never actually appear in the books! The novels don't try to be written in the style of Jane Austen - indeed, Aston owes a far greater debt to Georgette Heyer in coming up with these Regency romances. Which still makes them fun and highly enjoyable!


• The Modern Jane - Finally, modern chicklit meets Jane Austen. Mr Darcy throws a long shadow into the lives of modern gals who dream of meeting him in their daily lives. So these American misses (I suppose this is so that they can appeal to the US market) fly over the Atlantic to find the England of Jane Austen. In "Austenland" by Shannon Hale, American girl goes off to a stately home in England for a month's "theme vacation", where all the guests pretend they are living in the days of Jane Austen. "Mr Darcy and Me", by Alexandra Potter, is about an American on a guided tour of Jane Austen's England where she realises that the Mr Darcy she fantasises about can't match up to the real life reporter who joined the tour trying to work out what's so great about this Darcy chap. The BBC production is featured in both books, with special mention of the lake scene. Neither book is that great - eg the plots are a little predictable but I did derive some moderate enjoyment from these books (particularly Mr Darcy and Me) because they did not pretend to be anything other than chick lit. Neither of the main female characters can hold a candle to Bridget, though.

The ultimate test - most of these books were borrowed from the library. Which would I actually want to buy and keep on my bookshelf? Hmmm... tough one there. I think only Amanda Grange's Darcy's Diary passes that test and maybe I could consider an Elizabeth Aston book.

Now to move on to the novels inspired by the other JA books!